Fine and Dandy
by Teobi
Summary: Larry inadvertently saves a rich woman's life. As a reward, she whisks him away to a life of luxury. Understandably, Moe and Curly are not happy about Larry's disappearance, and set about trying to get him back. Classic!Stooges.
1. The Leaving of Larry

**A/N: I toyed with all sorts of titles for this story, all involving the word Fine, because it's Larry's surname and I wanted it in there. 'Another Fine Mess' seemed too obvious. Plus, it's more obviously connected with Laurel and Hardy and I'm pedantic like that (even though it would have worked). 'One Fine Day', 'A Fine State of Affairs', 'Fine for Some'. I tried 'em all for size. Finally (ha, no pun intended), I settled on 'Fine and Dandy'. And then I invented a Dandy Street. Tenuous? Yes. But does this make it a fairly ill-fitting title, just like some of the Stooges' shorts themselves? I hope so! **

**Anyway, that's how it got its name. You may now proceed to read and I shall sit here biting my nails hoping that you like it.**

**Fanfiction written for fun, not profit. **

**Based on the Classic Three Stooges. **

* * *

**Fine and Dandy**

**Chapter 1 **

**The Leaving of Larry**

"Jenson," said the attractive Society lady in the back seat of the Rolls Royce, "we mustn't travel our usual route down Simpson Street today. My horoscope informed me that 'trouble comes with the letter 's'."

The weary, grey haired Chauffeur in the driver's seat nodded indulgently. He had long ago become used to his employer's little eccentricities. Astrology, numerology, the I Ching, tarot cards and the like- she followed all of it religiously. "Yes, Mrs. Featherington," he replied, calmly. "I'll cut across Dandy Street instead, although you may be slightly late for your meeting because Dandy Street's very busy at this time of the morning."

"That's quite alright, Jenson," Mrs. Featherington smiled. "As long as we don't encounter the letter 's'. Or I might not get to the meeting at all!"

"Very well, Mrs. Featherington, as you wish," Jenson glanced affectionately at his employer in the rear view mirror and made a mental note to turn left at the next intersection.

Dandy Street was, to put it mildly, very busy. Like an artery running through the industrial side of the city, Dandy Street was full of factory workers, manual labourers, tailors, carpenters, fishmongers and butchers, blacksmiths, ironmongers and the like. There were horses, carts, bicycles and motor vehicles everywhere, even on the pavements. The air was blue with cussing sailors and thick with various accents from all around the world. Taverns were open for those in the know even as early as 7am. The buildings were black with soot and the alleyways were strewn with litter. But Dandy Street was used as a shortcut for those wanting to get from one side of the city to the other- which was probably why it was always so crowded.

At the side of the road, where they had managed to squeeze their small, flatbed truck into an even smaller parking space by shunting the car behind up onto the pavement, three painter/decorators were unloading their tools of the trade. The chirpy fat one was standing on the back of the truck, passing things down to the grumpy one with the soup bowl haircut, who was handing them in turn to the easygoing one with the hair like a tumbleweed gone crazy. All three were dressed in overalls that had once been white but were now all the colours of the rainbow from various paint jobs they'd done over the last few weeks (some of which had to be abandoned half way through after going horribly, horribly wrong). The fat one was dawdling because he was easily distracted by other things that were going on around him, and his cohorts were starting to get impatient.

"Come _annn_, what's the matter with you," the soup bowl haircut one said to the fat one. "Hurry it up, will ya?"

The fat one went "hmmmm!" and waved his arm at his glowering colleague. "Don't be impatient!" he trilled in a ridiculously high pitched voice.

Soup Bowl turned to Tumbleweed. "How d'ya like that," he grumbled, gesturing with his thumb at the fat one.

Tumbleweed put his hands on his hips, shook his head and tutted. "Tell him we ain't got all day."

Soup Bowl turned to Fat One, but then did a double take and turned back to Tumbleweed. He slapped Tumbleweed loudly right in the centre of his forehead- the only place on his scalp where there wasn't any hair. "Don't tell me what to do," he snarled. Then, turning back to Fat One, he repeated exactly what Tumbleweed had just said. "Hey, Puddin' Head. We ain't got all day!"

The fat one pouted like an overgrown child. "Ya want me to go faster? All right! I'll go faster!" He slapped his own face several times, jumped up and down on the spot and began throwing things out of the truck at high speed.

Soup Bowl and Tumbleweed cowered down and covered their heads as cans of paint, planks of wood, boxes of paintbrushes and bottles of turpentine (among other things) came raining out of the truck.

"It's an ambush!" cried Soup Bowl. He winced as a bottle bounced off his head and smashed in the road, sending glass fragments into the path of a Rolls Royce that was trundling slowly down the street.

Jenson saw the bottle break in front of him and tried to swerve around it, but it was too late. There was a loud bang as the tyre on the front wheel nearest the kerb exploded.

"Jenson! What was that?" cried Mrs. Featherington from the back seat.

"We got a puncture," Jenson replied with dismay. "Some goons just broke a bottle on the tarmac!"

Mrs. Featherington was not happy. "Well! Now I really _am _going to be late for my meeting! Stop the car, Jenson. I'm going to give those three fellows a piece of my mind!"

Jenson shrugged. "I'm stopping anyway," he muttered. "we ain't going no place with a busted tyre."

The Rolls pulled to a halt alongside the flatbed truck.

"You! You there, you three gentlemen!" cried Mrs. Featherington out of the back window. "What do you think you're doing?"

Soup Bowl and Tumbleweed, still crouching behind the wagon with their arms flung over their heads, peered up at the red faced woman who was shouting at them from the back of a posh car.

"It ain't us, lady," said Soup Bowl. "It's that imbecile up there!"

The fat one was still throwing things willy nilly without looking to see where they landed. A paint can with a loosened lid sailed up over the Rolls Royce. The lid came off as the paint can reached the top of its arc and began dropping. It landed open-end down on the head of a man driving a horse-drawn milk cart. Covered in paint and unable to see where he was going, he fell backwards with a loud yell, pulled on the reins and caused his horse to rear up and bolt. Noise and commotion filled the air as people swerved and ducked to avoid the things that the fat one was throwing out of the truck.

"We can't hear ya, lady!" cried Tumbleweed. "You'll have to come closer!"

"Oh, of all the...!" Mrs. Featherington harrumphed. "Jenson! My door!"

With a sigh, Jenson got out of the driver's side, went around to Mrs. Featherington's door and opened it for her. The attractive Society lady climbed out and stalked over to Tumbleweed, her finger already poised to give the fuzzy-haired miscreant a stern talking to.

"Look out!" cried Tumbleweed, suddenly. All four (Jenson, Mrs. Featherington, Soup Bowl and Tumbleweed) turned to see what was about to happen. The bolting horse came thundering across the street, reared up again, and brought its hooves crashing down onto the roof of the Rolls Royce, caving it in right above the spot where Mrs. Featherington had just been sitting. Mrs. Featherington went pale at the sound of crunching metal and her hand flew to her throat.

"Why, if you hadn't made me get out of the car, I could have been killed!" she said, her voice trembling.

"There's still time!" said Tumbleweed, pulling her out of the way of another flying paint can.

Meanwhile, Soup Bowl, holding the lid of a trash can in front of his face like a shield, was climbing up onto the back of the truck. He ducked out of the way of a box of nails and deflected a hammer with his makeshift shield. Then he tapped the fat one on the shoulder.

The fat one turned around. "You said go faster!" he shouted, petulantly.

Soup Bowl took his shield and rammed it down over the fat one's head. "Well, now I'm tellin' ya to slow down!" he thundered.

"Make up your mind!" the fat one complained.

Soup Bowl looked at the trash can shield which had formed itself into the shape of the fat one's head. "At least I _have_ a mind!" he growled.

"That's debatable!" the fat one grunted.

Soup Bowl was not impressed. "Why, I'll murder you!" he uttered, and launched himself at the fat one.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Featherington was gazing adoringly at Tumbleweed. "Young man, you saved my life!" she told him, her blue eyes dancing with gratitude. "Pray tell, what is your name?"

Tumbleweed dragged his toe across the ground. "Pray tell, I'm Larry." He blushed like a little kid in front of his favourite teacher. "And my two friends are Moe and Curly."

Mrs. Featherington looked with considerable disdain at Moe and Curly fighting on the back of the truck. Moe was raining a variety of items down on Curly's head- when something broke he just picked up something else. In the midst of the onslaught, Curly was able to get in a few blows of his own by waving his hand in front of Moe's face to distract him, and then punching him in the stomach. This only fueled Moe's ire, causing him to hit Curly even harder while he called him all the names under the sun, and some from under the moon and stars, too.

"How on earth do you manage to work with a pair of ruffians like that?" she asked in disbelief.

Larry sighed loudly. "It ain't easy," he told her.

"Are they like that _all_ the time?" Mrs. Featherington blinked as a two by four snapped over Curly's iron cranium.

Larry nodded slowly. "Yep. They're like that_ all _the time."

"You imbecile!" Moe roared. "You lamebrain! You empty headed nincompoop! You clumsy, no-good snake in the grass!"

"Hey! That ain't fair, I ain't no snake!" Curly kicked Moe hard up the rump. Moe's head went down into an open paint can.

"Why youuuuu!" Moe stood up and removed the paint can. Thick yellow paint oozed down all over him. He threw the empty can at Curly, who ducked. The paint can went sailing through a shopfront window, smashing it into smithereens. The owner of the shop came flying out onto the street, screaming and yelling blue murder.

Amidst the ruckus, Jenson had quietly gone to a phone booth and called Mrs. Featherington's butler for assistance. The butler sent along a second car, a sleek Daimler, which now pulled in behind the damaged Rolls, purring like a panther.

"Come along, Larry," Mrs. Featherington said, taking the startled tumbleweed by the arm. "I'm whisking you away from all of this right now!"

Larry hesitated, pulling against her. "What do you mean, you're whisking me away? Why?"

"Why? because you saved my life, that's why!"

"But what if I don't wanna be whisked?" Larry said plaintively.

Mrs. Featherington pointed at Moe and Curly, who were still raucously brawling on the back of the truck. "Do you really want to spend the rest of your days with people like that?"

Larry pursed his lips. "We-ell..."

Encouraged by Larry's indecision, Mrs. Featherington continued more forcefully. "Larry, listen to me. If you come with me, you shall have a life of unparalleled luxury from this day on. All the finest things will be at your disposal. You will never need to work, and you shall never want for money or food ever again. And you shall certainly be free from behaviour like _that_!"

Moe had just jabbed Curly in the eyes, and Curly retaliated by hitting Moe in the face with a wet sponge. The owner of the shop with the broken window had already been dispensed with- he was sitting unconscious on the pavement with his back against the wall wearing an upside down paint can on his head.

"You mean to say if I go with you, I'll never be hit over the head again?" Larry murmured. "Never be slapped by Moe for no reason at all? Never get the blame for stupid stuff that Curly does?"

Mrs. Featherington nodded. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

Larry looked closely at Mrs. Featherington. She wasn't a bad looking broad, he decided. And then there was that old saying, 'never look a gift horse in the mouth'. She was offering him a way out, a new life, a _prosperous_ life, and he'd be stupid not to take it.

Larry hitched his shoulders, stuck his hands deep inside the pockets of his dirty overalls. He watched Moe and Curly for a few more moments. "I doubt they'd even miss me," he sighed.

Mrs. Featherington sidled up to him and slipped her arm through his. "Well? Have you made up your mind yet?"

Larry nodded. "Yeah," he said, softly. "I guess I have."

Moe had managed to twist Curly down into a headlock with one arm and was bopping him steadily on the head with a monkey wrench. Curly was 'ow-ow-ow'ing' with every blow. Suddenly Moe stopped. He took his arm away from Curly's head and Curly promptly fell flat on his face.

"Hey! What gives?" asked Curly. "You broke the tempo!"

"It's Larry!" Moe shouted. "He's leavin' us!"

Curly sprang to his feet, surprisingly lightly for a fat man. "Whaddya mean he's leavin' us? Talk sense, Moe!"

Moe slapped his face. "I _am _talkin' sense! _Look_!"

Curly looked to where Moe was pointing with the wrench. Larry was climbing into the back of the sleek Daimler behind the snooty lady that had come over to give them a piece of her mind. "Hey! Where's _he_ goin'?" Curly asked.

"How should I know? Come on!" Moe scrambled clumsily off the back of the truck. "Larry! Hey, Larry!"

"Hey, Larry!" Curly echoed. "Where ya goin'?"

"Larry," Moe yelled, breaking into a run as the Daimler pulled away from the kerb. "Larry! Wait for us!"

Larry turned around on the back seat of the Daimler and watched though the rear window at his two erstwhile friends running after the car. They were quite a sight- Moe, covered in yellow paint from head to foot with his arms waving wildly, and Curly, with a broken picture frame around his neck, jumping up and down and crying, '_woo woo woo woo woo_!'

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," he muttered.

"Nonsense," Mrs. Featherington smiled, patting his arm. "Just think- once we've got you settled in your new home, you'll never be troubled by those idiots again. Won't that be nice?"

Moe and Curly's irate figures were getting smaller and smaller in the distance. Moe threw a balled up rag onto the road and stomped on it. Larry put his hand to his face and rubbed his cheek. He knew that if he were with them now, he'd already have been slapped at least a half a dozen times, and that was just for starters.

"Yeah," he said, forlornly. And then the penny dropped and he grinned widely. "_Yeah!" _he announced, punching his fist in the air. "I'll never be troubled by those idiots again!"


	2. Brothers do it better

**Chapter 2 **

**Brothers do it Better**

"The nerve of that knucklehead!" Moe complained, pacing back and forth behind the truck. "Who does he think he is, leavin' us like that?"

"Maybe he's been kidnapped!" Curly offered.

Moe stopped pacing and glared at him. "What are you talking about? Kidnapped! Did you see anyone holding a gun to his head?"

Curly narrowed his eyes. "Did _you_?"

Moe stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Why, no!"

Curly tipped his head conspiratorially to one side. "Well, there ya go then."

Moe looked startled for a second, then his eyes narrowed into slits. He clenched his fists and thrust his face right up into Curly's. "Why do I even bother consultin' you on anything," he muttered.

"Because I'm all ya got," Curly replied, cheerfully. "Especially now!"

Moe's face fell. "By golly, you're right," he said, bitterly. "What a hideous thought!"

"Hey! I resemble that!" Curly pouted.

Moe sprang into action. He grabbed Curly by the arm and pushed him roughly towards the cab of their vehicle. "C'mon, get in the truck," he ordered. "We gotta find Larry before I start losin' the will to live!"

**…**

"Wow," muttered Larry. "Wow!"

He stood in the grand entrance of Mrs. Featherington's mansion, just inside the huge oak front door, staring up at the ornate ceiling which arched over them.

"And this is just the foyer!" said Mrs. Featherington, pleased as punch with Larry's reaction. "Wait until you see the rest of it!"

"So, how long you lived here, Toots?" Larry asked, genially.

"Just over twenty years now," the attractive Society lady answered. "My late husband and I were very happy here."

"Late husband, eh." Larry continued to admire his surroundings until once more, a penny dropped into the vacant space between his ears. "Wait a minute. Did you say 'husband'?"

"Yes, my late husband."

Larry started edging towards the door. "It's a good thing he's gonna be late, because I don't want him to catch me here!"

Mrs. Featherington shook her head in amusement. She gestured to the butler who went over and stood in the doorway to prevent Larry from leaving. "I meant 'late', as in 'deceased'," she smiled. "My husband died six years ago."

"Oh!" said Larry, with audible relief. Then he did a double take. "He _died?"_

"Yes," Mrs. Featherington nodded. "Sadly, he succumbed to pneumonia after falling into a lake on an ice fishing trip. I'm a widow, my dear Larry." She primped her silver-blonde curls and flirtatiously batted her long, dark eyelashes. "A very wealthy widow."

Larry gulped. "I see."

Mrs. Featherington arched one perfect eyebrow. "Do you?"

Larry frowned, puzzled. It didn't take much to confuse him, even on a good day. "I dunno," he admitted. "Do I?"

Mrs. Featherington laughed merrily. "Come, my dear boy! Let me show you the rest of the house, and then we can have a small bite to eat. How does that sound?"

The mere mention of food pushed any and all thoughts of Mrs. Featherington's dead husband right out of Larry's tiny mind. "Make it a _big_ bite to eat and it sounds right up my street," he grinned, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

Mrs. Featherington lowered her eyelids coyly and linked her arm through his. "Shall we?" she tinkled, waving her arm towards the grand staircase.

Larry patted her hand and nodded. "I believe we shall!" he replied, happily.

**...**

It had taken a while for Moe to navigate the rickety old truck through the city streets while Curly tried to keep an eye on the distant Daimler. When he wasn't yelling at Curly, the glowering Stooge muttered under his breath for almost the whole journey out of town.

"Wait until I get a hold of that ungrateful turnip head," he growled. "After all I've done to...I mean, _for_ him!"

"I told you, he's been kidnapped!" Curly kept insisting.

Without taking his eyes off the road, Moe reached out and slapped the side of Curly's cranium. "And I keep telling you, no-one had a gun to his head!"

"Maybe she promised him free food!" Curly suggested. "And a warm bed. And a hot bath!" The bald Stooge paused a moment and then went, "nyaa-aa-aargh!"

Moe's eyes widened. He almost, but not quite, took them off the road to stare at Curly. "_What_ did you say?"

"Free food?" Curly squeaked, nervously.

"After that!" Moe snapped.

"A warm bed!"

Moe chewed on his lower lip. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. "After that," he rumbled.

"A hot bath!"

Moe slapped the steering wheel hard as though he'd just had a Eureka moment. "Larry wouldn't willingly go with anyone who offered him a hot bath!"

"Sure he would, if it was Spring!"

Moe's lips thinned right out into a grim line. "I'll moider him," he muttered. "And then I'll moider you!"

"Why me?" Curly protested.

"So you can keep each other company," Moe barked.

"So you think he's been kidnapped?"

"Will ya shaddap about bein' kidnapped?" Moe yanked the steering wheel over to one side so that Curly banged his head on the side of the door. He didn't care that the vehicle behind them nearly careened off the road into a lamp post. "I bet you don't even know what it means!"

"Sure I do!" Curly straightened up, rubbing his temple. "It means...it means..." his face twisted into a frown of concentration. "Okay, Mr. Smarty Pants, what _does_ it mean?"

"It means being forced to go somewhere against your will," Moe grumbled. "And it looked to me like Larry got into that car all by himself."

"All by himself wid a rich dame," Curly added.

Moe glanced sideways. "Yeahhh. A rich dame."

"A very rich dame, 'cause she came in one car and left in anudder!"

"So she did." Moe said, thoughtfully. "And from what I saw, she wasn't bad lookin', either."

"For a kidnapper," Curly threw in.

Moe's fist flew out and clipped the end of Curly's nose. "Will ya shaddap about kidnappers!" he yelled.

Curly clutched his nose. "My proboscis!" he whimpered.

"I'll knock your whole head off next time!"

"You just try it!" Curly shouted. Then he had second thoughts. "Oh yeah, ya would, too."

"I don't think Larry's been kidnapped," Moe growled, stepping on the gas as they approached yet another red light. "But I do think that maybe he's been tricked." He steered the truck down the inside of the waiting line of traffic and cut over the corner of the intersection on the pavement, ignoring everyone's yells of fury. "Why would anyone want a dimwit like Larry?"

"Beats me," said Curly, hanging onto the door for dear life.

"To keep as a pet!" Moe declared. "Someone to show off to her high society friends!"

"Why don't she just get a dog, like everybody else?" Curly put his hands over his eyes as Moe narrowly missed mowing down an old Jewish guy on a bicycle. The old guy wobbled and fell off the bike into the road.

"Meshugener!" he yelled, shaking his fist at the truck. "Does it hurt to be crazy?"

"Kiss my tuches," Moe muttered, glancing only briefly at the old boy in the rear view mirror.

"That ain't nice!" said Curly.

"Neither is this," said Moe, slapping Curly's face with a neat backhander.

"Fair point," said Curly, and continued looking out for the Daimler. "Hey, there it is!" he cried after a few minutes of intense gazing. He thrust his arm straight across Moe's face and pointed out of Moe's window. The truck swerved, screeching across the opposite flow of traffic. Car horns blared and tooted as the bowl cut Stooge then swerved and manoeuvred back onto his side of the road.

"Watch what you're doing, you imbecile, or you'll get us both killed!" Moe yelled. Then he leaned forward and bit down on Curly's arm, making a horrible crunching noise.

"Owowowowowowowowow!" screamed Curly, jumping up and banging his head on the roof of the cab.

"If we don't get there in one piece, I'll tear ya limb from limb!" Moe shouted, angrily. "Now sit down and shaddap and keep your eyes on the road!"

The rest of their journey was spent in a tense, brittle silence as Moe followed the Daimler out of the city and into the suburbs. When the posh car finally turned into a huge driveway guarded by an enormous set of wrought-iron gates, Moe continued driving down the road a ways before pulling into a small layby where he cut the engine and finally released the steering wheel from his death grip. He breathed out a huge sigh of relief and sat back, wiping his face with both hands.

"That was the most invigorating ride I ever rode," said Curly, listening to the overheated engine ticking while it cooled down. "I must come to Coney Island more often!"

"I'll Coney Island you!" Moe threw himself across the seat and grabbed Curly by the throat with both hands, pounding the fat Stooge's head against the door. "This mess is all your fault!"

"Moe! Moe! We ain't got time for this now," Curly gagged. "We gotta go find Larry before that dame has him eating out of her hand!"

Moe snapped immediately back to attention. He let go of Curly's throat and flung the driver's door wide open. "Or a gilded dog bowl!" he cried.

Curly threw himself out of the passenger side and landed on top of Moe who had already run around to his side of the truck to pull him out.

"You knucklehead!" Moe shouted, then clamped his hand over his own mouth. "Come on!" he hissed through his fingers. "We gotta get into these grounds somehow!"

The two Stooges crept along the perimeter wall that bordered the Featherington Estate. There was a thick hedge on their side that made scaling the wall almost impossible. But soon they came to a tree with a few lower branches that almost hung over the wall. The branches, however, looked quite slender and unable to take the weight of a full grown Stooge.

Moe looked up at the tree, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "We gotta try it," he mused. "I don't see any other way." He went over to the tree and grabbed a small branch that stuck out at head height. "Hey, Pudd'n Head. Get down on all fours."

Curly promptly dropped to his hands and knees.

"Over here, you idiot!"

Curly crawled across to where Moe was standing. He panted and whined like a dog and then he sniffed Moe's shoe. Right at the moment when it appeared that he might cock his leg, Moe kicked him heftily in the rump. "Stand here, bloodhound," he growled.

Curly stood obediently in front of Moe, who climbed up onto his back for a boost. The bowl cut Stooge hefted himself up into the lower branches.

"Now you," said Moe, looking down.

Curly stood up. He lifted his leg and then looked around, perplexed. "Heyyyyy!" he whined. "Who am _I_ gonna stand on?"

Moe snapped his fingers in irritation. "_This_ is why we need Larry back!" he muttered. "Okay, gimme your hands. C'mon, that's it!"

With an awful lot of grunting, snorting, whimpering, cracking of bone and stretching of cartilage, Moe finally managed to haul the full weight of Curly up into the tree. He sat back against the trunk, looking distinctly pale faced, even under the remnants of yellow paint that still adhered to his face, neck and hair. "I'm a goner!" he moaned, shakily. "I think my arms have stretched three inches!"

"Well, look at it this way," said Curly, brightly. "If you start walking on your hands, you'll be three inches taller! Nyuk nyuk nyuk!"

The blood instantly rushed back into Moe's face, turning it almost purple. "I'll walk on _your _hands!" he rumbled, but as he lunged for Curly he almost fell out of the tree. "Later!" he amended, quickly, grabbing onto a branch for safety. "Remind me to do it later!"

"I'll make a note of it," Curly said, helpfully.

The two Stooges began crawling along the lowest branch that hung out over the perimeter wall. It bent and cracked immediately under the weight of both of them.

"Woo woo woo woo woo!" Curly yelled as the branch threatened to dump them back onto the ground.

"You idiot!" Moe hissed. "Why didn't you let me go first?"

"I did let you go first! You're in front of me, see?"

Moe kicked his leg backwards like a mule and the heel of his shoe connected with Curly's nose. There was a loud crunch. "Go annnnn, get back there," he ordered.

Curly returned to the middle of the tree, muttering to himself as Moe crawled further along the branch, which now hung downwards at a perilous angle. In order to reach the top of the perimeter wall, Moe would have to let go of the branch and try to get both arms over the wall before he fell to the ground. Curly held his breath as he watched Moe get to the end of the branch and hesitate. Then the chief Stooge spit on both hands and made a jump for it.

He made it. Clinging to the top of the wall with both arms, Moe scrabbled up the wall with his feet and hauled himself bodily upwards until at last he was sitting on the top of the wall.

"Hmmmm!" said Curly. "Humpty Dumpty!"

Moe scowled at him with his chin thrust out. "Get over here and say that!" he demanded.

"Woo woo woo woo woo," Curly whispered to himself. Then, suitably self-encouraged, he began to crawl out along the branch in the same way that Moe had done. Except that, even though Moe was no lightweight himself, Curly was even heavier. The branch made an ominous splintering sound as it began to tear away from the main trunk.

"N'yaa-aaa-aargh!" said Curly, going cross-eyed.

"Come on! Quickly!" Moe called. "The longer you stay where you are, the more danger there is of you falling!"

As if in agreement, the branch ripped away from the tree some more. Curly was now almost pointing straight downwards. "It's no use!" the fat Stooge moaned. "I'm gonna fall and crack my cranium!"

"You'll break the ground before you crack your cranium," Moe grumbled. "Here! Gimme your hand!"

"I can't! I need it myself!" cried Curly, holding onto the branch for dear life.

"I said, _give me your hand_, you numbskull!"

"You didn't say 'numbskull'!"

"Well, I'm sayin' it now! Give me your hand, or so help me, I'll..."

With a loud, splintering crack, the branch came away from the tree entirely. Curly threw his arms out and Moe grabbed his right hand. "I've got ya!" Moe yelled. He threw his weight backwards and pulled Curly with him. Curly flew out of the tree and hit the top of the wall, knocking all the breath out of his lungs. There was one hideous moment when it seemed that Curly would pull Moe off the wall on the wrong side, but then Moe won out through sheer tenacity and at last the two Stooges hurtled off the wall and down into the grounds of the Featherington Estate.

Moe landed on his back in the soft grass, and Curly plummeted onto his face in the flower bed. He lay there groaning for a few seconds, then pushed himself up onto his hands to reveal a rose clutched between his teeth. He blinked and shook dirt off his bald head.

Moe spotted the rose and sat up in the grass with his hands clasped to his heart. "For me?" he simpered. He reached forward and plucked the rose from Curly's teeth. "I didn't know you cared!"

"I don't! But you can keep it anyway," Curly replied. "Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk."

Moe smiled sweetly. He sniffed the rose, examined it minutely, sighed with adoration, then whacked Curly over the head with it. The flower head exploded, scattering pink petals everywhere. Moe raked the thorny stalk down Curly's face. "A two-timer, eh?" he growled.

"Owowowowowow!" cried Curly as the thorns left red lines down his nose.

"My mother warned me about men like you!" Moe thundered.

"That's funny, my mother warned me about your mother!" Curly retorted. They scuffled briefly in the grass before Moe suddenly slapped his hand over Curly's mouth.

"Quiet, onionhead," he growled. "We can't go around fightin' like this. We got work to do!" He peered over his shoulder at the mansion in the distance. "Would ya get a load of the stately pile," he murmured. "To think, Larry's in there somewhere right now."

"Yeah!" Curly mumbled. "Bein' held against his will!"

Moe scrambled to his feet, dragging Curly with him. "C'mon," he hissed. "We gotta go find him before she scrambles his brain and he forgets who we are. Considerin' the size of his brain, that ain't gonna take too long!"

They began running along the wall, trying to keep out of sight. Then Curly suddenly stopped.

"Who _are_ we?" he asked, twiddling his fingers together in puzzlement.

Moe skidded to a halt, ran back and slapped Curly across the face. "Get to work, fathead!" he shouted.

Curly pressed himself against the wall, blinking nervously as Moe scowled right up into his face. "Okay, Moe, okay! I was just testin'! Just havin' a little fun!"

"You test my patience daily, you sap," Moe said in a very ominous tone. "When we find Larry you'll be lucky if I don't leave you there in his place, only I don't think there's a single rich dame on this earth who would want you!" With that, Moe pushed himself away from Curly and resumed running along the wall, his angry mutters floating behind him, daring Curly to open his mouth again.

Curly knew when it was time to shut up and do what Moe said. Silently he brushed himself down, straightened his collar, hitched up his pants, and resumed running along the wall behind Moe, without even so much as a woo-woo-woo.


	3. Window pains

**Chapter 3 **

**Window Pains**

"So, what do you think of the upstairs?" Mrs. Featherington and Larry ambled arm in arm down the magnificent second floor hallway, the walls of which were lined with portrait upon portrait of distinguished ancestors, and beautiful original landscapes painted by the Masters. "The rooms are rather modest, I know. But I do hope you were impressed!"

"I sure was!" Larry said with a goofy grin. "I never saw so many bedrooms in one place before. It's like a hotel! All that's missing are the chambermaids!"

Mrs. Featherington tutted. "It's nothing like a hotel! Hotels are vulgar places."

"Yeah," Larry agreed. "I guess you just get a better class of bed bug at the Ritz." As they approached the top of the grand staircase, he craned his neck and looked up and around with an awestruck expression on his face. Even the ceiling was decorated with plaster cornices and splendid with ornate chandeliers. "All this just for one person," he sighed.

"Well of course, there were two of us at one time- myself, and my poor departed Philip." The Society lady lowered her eyelashes sadly.

"It's still bigger'n any place I've ever seen." Larry was so busy staring at the ceiling he missed the first step with his foot and had to grab onto the banister to stop himself from tumbling all the way down with Mrs. Featherington still attached to his arm.

"Whoops!" he cried. "That was close!"

"You poor thing!" Mrs. Featherington helped Larry stand up straight again. She tidied his rumpled tweed jacket (she had already made him get rid of his painter's overalls), brushed his shoulders down, and then she started fussing around with his hair, attempting to primp the wild, untamed curls into place.

"This is nice," Larry sighed. "Moe would have slapped me for doing that."

"Slapped you for nearly falling down the stairs? Why, that's despicable!" Mrs. Featherington linked arms with Larry again and made sure he got down the staircase unharmed, watching his feet all the way to make sure he didn't miss another step. "Aren't you glad to be away from those ill-bred hooligans at last?"

"My face is," Larry replied. "But you know, if I ever get homesick, you can always slap me yourself!" he blushed like a schoolboy again, and ducked his head shyly.

"I certainly will not slap you myself," Mrs. Featherington tittered. "You're far too sweet for that!"

Larry blushed even deeper. "I can't believe my ears!" he giggled.

Mrs. Featherington laughed gaily. "They're perfectly adorable ears!" she trilled. "Why, you're like a little cocker spaniel!" She patted the bushy curls next to Larry's ear as though petting a dog.

"Gee! Thanks!" Larry simpered, dragging his toe back and forth across the carpet. "That's the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me!"

Mrs. Featherington patted Larry's cheek and then pinched it affectionately. "Now, how about that bite to eat?" she suggested. "I shall ask Roberts to tell Gussie and William to rustle us up something immediately!"

Larry looked puzzled. "Roberts and Gussie and who? How many people does it take to make a chicken sandwich, anyway?"

"Chicken sandwich?" Mrs. Featherington laughed until her silver blonde curls shook. "My dear Larry, you shall never have to eat another 'chicken sandwich' ever again! From now on, it's fresh caught lobster and pate de foie gras all the way!"

"Patty who?" Larry looked startled.

"Pate de foie gras!" Mrs. Featherington patted his arm happily. "Fatty goose liver! It's quite the delicacy!"

As Mrs. Featherington began making her way to the kitchens, Larry held back with a look of mild horror on his face. "But I like chicken sandwiches," he murmured, feeling a small sense of panic rising. "And I don't like the sound of fatty goose liver!"

…

Moe and Curly finally reached what looked like a small fruit orchard. Moe grabbed Curly by the arm and signalled towards the house. They used the cover of the trees to start making their way closer to the mansion, but Curly stopped half way across and started picking apples up off the ground, humming gently to himself. When Moe got to the edge of the orchard he turned around to find that he was on his own. He was not pleased. His face scrunched into a scowl and he stalked back towards Curly with his fists clenched.

Curly had filled his pockets with windfall and was happily munching away on a particularly juicy looking specimen. When he saw Moe approaching, he held up the apple to show him. "Look!" the fat Stooge babbled, apple juice glistening on his chin. "I finally found one that didn't have a woim in!"

Moe folded his arms and stood there, nodding indulgently. "Well, good for you!" he said, as calmly as was humanly possible, given the rage that was simmering just below his bowl cut hairdo.

"Yeah," Curly grinned, taking another huge bite. "Good for me!"

Moe wiped off the juice that Curly had sprayed over his face when he spoke with his mouth full of apple. He flicked the juice aside with his fingertips.

"My, that apple looks delicious," he said with a forced smile. "May I take a bite?"

Curly nyuk-nyuked, and then held out the apple. "Why, soitenly!"

"Thank you," said Moe. Ignoring the apple clutched therein, he took hold of Curly's hand and bit down hard, right to the knuckle, making that awful crunching sound again.

"_Owowowowowow!_" garbled Curly.

Moe bit down harder. Curly squawked louder.

"I got a worm!" Moe declared, and bent one of Curly's fingers backwards until it almost touched the back of his hand.

Curly almost fell to his knees in pain. "Ow, Moe! Ow, Moe, stoppit! You're breakin' my poor little digit!"

Moe let go. He pulled Curly roughly to his feet and then thumped him in the stomach with a loud 'boing'. "Now get rid of those apples and remember what we came here for. Go annnn, get rid of 'em!" He stood with his arms folded until the sulky Curly had removed every single apple from his pockets and thrown them back on the ground, some of them so forcefully that they split into fragments, spraying apple juice and worms everywhere.

"I bet if it was _your_ idea to pick up apples, we'd still be back there now," Curly pouted, as he and Moe ducked and dodged through the trees until at last they reached the edge of the orchard.

"Quit cryin' over the apples," Moe glowered. "There's the house." He put his hand to his eyes to shield them from the glare of the sun. "You see any ugly guard dogs?"

Curly looked directly at Moe. "Just the one," he tittered.

Moe peered intently across the lawn for a moment or two before realising what Curly meant. He turned around and slapped Curly across the face. "Wiseguy, eh?"

"Hmmmmm!" said Curly. He retaliated by waving his hand upwards from under Moe's chin to the top of his head before grabbing a hank of Moe's hair and smacking the chief Stooge squarely in the centre of his forehead. "Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk," he chuckled as Moe rubbed his head and scowled angrily at him.

"I'd brain ya, if you had a brain," Moe grumbled.

"It's a good thing I don't," Curly grinned, and nyuk-nyuk-nyuk'ed again before his face fell into a look of realization. "Hmmmm!" he squeaked. "I'm a victim of coicumstance!"

Moe stared at him and shook his head. "What did I ever do to deserve you?" he asked, mournfully.

"Don't worry," said Curly, "I haven't forgotten to remind you to moider me later."

"That's good," said Moe. Then he grabbed Curly by the earlobe and squeezed hard. "C'mon. All we gotta do is get across this lawn and then we're home free. We'll get over to one of those lower windows and see what we can see. See?"

"Yeah!" Curly winced as Moe dragged him across the lawn by his ear. "I see, I see!"

…

Mrs. Featherington watched, wide-eyed, as Larry wolfed down everything that was put in front of him. A whole turkey disappeared in minutes. An entire ham was demolished in seconds. Silver platters of mashed potato and vegetables hardly touched the sides, and he drank the gravy out of the gravy boat by pouring it straight down his throat. The only thing that went untouched was the jar of pate de foie gras, but Larry soon made short work of the accompanying crackers.

"Well, you certainly were hungry!" the Society lady exclaimed, when at last Larry sat back, rubbing his bloated stomach contentedly, surrounded by the crumb-strewn debris of a very lavish banquet.

"That was quite a spread, Mrs. F!" Larry grinned. "I ain't eaten since last Thursday, when Curly made his speciality. Fillet of Sole and Heel!"

"Why, that sounds perfectly disgusting," Mrs. Featherington grimaced.

"Believe me, it was. He'd been wearin' those boots for thirty days straight!"

Mrs. Featherington shook her head sadly. "I can't believe a delicate boy like you would willingly spend his whole life with such...such _cavemen_," she declared. "It's quite beyond my comprehension!"

"I bet you can't understand it either," Larry nodded. He began fishing around in his pockets. "Hey, you got any toothpicks around here?"

"I shall have Roberts bring you all you need," Mrs. Featherington replied. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must make a phone call to the ladies I missed at my meeting this morning." She got up and went around to Larry's side of the table and stood behind him, squeezing his shoulders affectionately. "You stay right here and finish digesting your food, and Roberts will bring you your toothpicks."

Larry admired Mrs. Featherington's shapely figure as she left the room and then carried on searching his pockets for toothpicks, even though he didn't have any.

A few moments later, Roberts the butler appeared. He approached the table on Larry's left and placed a silver toothpick holder and a small golden bowl in front of the bushy haired Stooge.

"Much obliged, Robert." Larry extracted a toothpick from the holder and wedged it into his teeth.

"It's _Roberts_, 'Sir'," the butler sniffed, pointedly.

"Oh! Well, much obliged, Roberts, _sir,_" Larry grinned. Chewing contentedly on the toothpick, he leaned forward and peered into the golden bowl. "What's in this thing?" He picked up the bowl and sniffed the contents.

"It's a finger bowl," Roberts answered disdainfully

Larry dropped the bowl in surprise. It hit the table, spilling water everywhere, and clattered to the floor. "Fingers?" he squawked. "Fatty goose liver's one thing, but I sure ain't eatin' no _fingers_!"

Without a further word of explanation, the snooty butler huffed loudly, turned crisply on his heel and stalked out of the dining room in disgust.

Larry got down on his hands and knees and crawled under the table to retrieve the bowl. At the exact same moment, two heads, one dark and one bald, poked up through the bushes outside and two eerily similar pairs of narrowed blue eyes peered in at him through the nearest dining room window.

Moe gasped in horror. He thumped Curly's arm repeatedly. "What did I tell ya? What did I tell ya? She's got him eatin' out of a bowl on the floor like a dog!"

Curly pushed his face right up against the glass until his nose and lips were flattened. "That's the saddest thing I ever saw!"

Moe made as if to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye. "Yeah! Poor Larry!" he sniffed.

"Not Larry! All those empty plates!" Curly sighed. "I sure am hungry!" He rubbed his stomach wistfully and it growled right on cue.

Moe bopped Curly on the top of his head with his fist. "What's-a matter with you," he growled. "Can't you stop thinkin' about your stomach for one minute?"

"Sure," Curly replied. "But it can't stop thinkin' about me!" With that, his ample belly rumbled again. "Sshhh!" he said, putting a finger to his lips. "It ain't polite to talk while other people are interruptin'."

Moe bopped him again. "C'mon, quit stallin' and try and get Larry's attention here!" The chief Stooge started rapping on the window pane. "Larry!" he hissed. "Larry! Hey, porcupine!"

Larry was now sitting cross legged under the table and scrutinizing the golden finger bowl, turning it this way and that. "There's no fingers in here! It's just water," he muttered. He lifted the bowl and poured the last drops of water onto his tongue and then licked his lips and grinned. "High class water, that is!"

As he lowered the bowl, he caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye, over by the window. He looked across the room. He shook his head. He squinted as though he couldn't believe his eyes. On the other side of the glass were Moe and Curly, waving their arms and tapping on the glass. He could see his name being mouthed over and over again. Larry! Larry! _Larry!_

Larry began clambering to his feet. He banged his head on the underside of the table (which made all the silverware rattle), crawled out from under the table, and tried again. Shaking his head to reorient himself, he wandered dazedly across the room. The window was a large, floor to ceiling affair with thick velvet drapes on either side and beautifully polished glass panes that were at least an inch thick.

He stared out of the window at his former buddies. Moe was still spotted with yellow paint, his ordinarily neat bowl cut stuck together in clumps. His expression was one of anguish rather than anger as he stared back, open-mouthed, at Larry. Meanwhile, Curly was grinding his teeth and going cross-eyed in his attempts to get Larry's attention. The two Stooges were standing right in the middle of the bushes- in fact it looked as if they'd crawled through several miles of bushes to get where they were. But that didn't surprise Larry- he had once been a Stooge himself, and he knew the lengths they went to to get what they wanted.

"What are you fellas doin' here?" he asked, unsure whether they could even hear him.

"Larry!" cried Moe, barely audible. "You've been kidnapped!"

"I'll get a _big slap_?" Larry shook his head. "See, that's exactly why I left you fellas! I'm sick and tired of bein' slapped!"

"Larry! You've been _kidnapped_!" Moe said again. "Kid...napped!" He mimed holding a gun to Curly's head.

"Hey, wait a minute, you can't shoot Curly just because you can't have me!" Larry protested.

Moe rolled his eyes wearily. He tried again, pointing in great, exaggerated motions at the table behind Larry. Puzzled, Larry looked over his shoulder. Then Moe put his hands up in front of his face and curled them over. He lolled out his tongue and began panting like a dog. Curly joined in- Larry could hear him going "Ruff, ruff," through the glass. Moe pointed again. At the finger bowl on the floor, and then at Larry. He carried on panting with his tongue hanging out.

"Oh, _I _get it!" Larry exclaimed at last. "You want some food!" He leaned close to the window and mouthed the words slowly. "You...want...some...food!"

Moe shook his head violently and impatiently, his matted bangs swinging from side to side.

Larry wagged his finger at Moe. "Bad dog! Mustn't beg!"

Moe scowled, raised two fingers, and tried to jab Larry's eyes through the glass. His fingers struck the pane and Larry stuck his tongue out and went 'na na na na naaa'. Curly 'nyuk nyuk nyuk'ed' and Moe turned and jabbed him in the eyes instead. Curly rubbed his eyes and hollered in pain. For one fleeting moment Larry wished he were on the other side of the window, even if it meant getting slapped until his cheeks were raw and poked until his eyeballs exploded. After all, they had been his best pals, once upon a time. (That very morning, in fact.) And then he heard Mrs. Featherington returning, her voice chattering gaily down the hallway as she issued instructions for the evening to Roberts.

Larry made a split-second decision. While Moe and Curly bickered outside, the bushy haired former Stooge reached for the curtain pull and yanked the drapes shut on his fellow men, completely ignoring their sudden wild gesticulations as they realised what he was doing.

The heavy velvet material fell across the window and completely blocked their faces from his view.

Mrs. Featherington entered the room and immediately noticed the closed drapes. She raised a puzzled eyebrow at Larry.

"The sun was givin' me a headache," Larry explained. "I can be quite a fragile creature, you know." He figured it wasn't much of a lie because his head still smarted from where he'd banged it under the table.

"Oh, you poor thing," Mrs. Featherington soothed. "But...what's that noise?"

Even though the curtains were shut, Moe and Curly were still rapping on the glass outside.

"Woodpeckers," said Larry. "And cats. Woodpeckers and cats. I can't stand the sight of 'em...my delicate constitution gets easily upset." He rested his forearm across his head and sighed as though the weight of the world was on his weary shoulders.

"I shall have Winslow take a look," the Society lady said, sternly. "I can't abide cats in my hydrangeas."

"Winslow? Who's Winslow?" Larry frowned at yet another name of some mysterious person he hadn't met yet.

"Why, Winslow is my gardener, of course! He looks after the grounds."

"Of course!" said Larry, and then whistled. "I'm beginning to see why you need so many bedrooms!"

Mrs. Featherington approached Larry with a look of concern. "I must admit, you do seem a little pale," she murmured. "You look as though you've had a shock."

"Lady, you don't know the half of it," Larry replied, as yet another round of tapping rang out from behind the drapes.

"Confound those creatures!" the Society lady said, making a move towards the window, but Larry reached for her arm and stopped her.

"Don't trouble yourself, my sweet," he told her. "Let Winslow take care of them. Tell him he'll need a 12 bore shotgun to make sure they really get the message."

"I certainly shall," Mrs. Featherington said, stiffly. "I won't tolerate pests in my garden!"

"Believe me," said Larry wryly, "you don't want _those_ pests in your garden."

More tapping ensued, and Larry covered it up by making a great show of feeling faint. "Ohhhh," he moaned, holding onto the back of a chair for support. "My aching head!"

Mrs. Featherington began fussing all around him. "You poor, poor boy," she fretted. "It must have been all that rich food. Oh, I _knew _we shouldn't have overdone it on your very first day!" She put her hand on Larry's expansive forehead. "You do feel a little clammy," she said. "Perhaps you ought to go upstairs to your new room and take a nap for a couple of hours. We're having guests later on, and I want you to feel rested and well."

"Guests?" Larry asked, warily.

"Yes. Since I missed my meeting this morning, a few of the ladies from my Astrology club are coming round for a late supper. I shall read fortunes and predict everyone's futures! Won't that be fun?"

Larry pulled a face. "I dunno. I was never one for all that superstitious mumbo jumbo."

Mrs. Featherington laughed indulgently as though she'd heard that kind of thing a million times before. "Nonsense, my dear Larry! You'll be surprised at how accurate my readings are!"

Larry smiled at Mrs. Featherington's enthusiasm. "Well, okay, if you say so, it is your house after all. Meanwhile, you better tell Winslow to take care of those critters before they set about destroying everything in sight. We don't want them ruining our evening!"

"I'll take care of it right away," Mrs. Featherington promised. She pinched Larry's cheeks and cooed over him. "Now you just go on upstairs, my little snookums, and rest your adorable, little furry head."

"I'll try," said Larry, bravely.

**...**

Outside the window, Moe and Curly stood in the bushes with their hands on their hips, wearing identical looks of annoyance. Suddenly Curly reached out and grabbed a handful of Moe's hair, ripping it away from the scalp.

Moe yelled in pain. "What's the big idea?" he shouted, putting his hands over his head.

"I'm tearing your hair out in frustration, 'cause I ain't got none of my own," Curly explained, quite reasonably.

"I'll tear your tonsils out," Moe barked. He drew his fist back in preparation to punch Curly, but then stopped as the two Stooges both heard a commotion from around the far end of the house. A man's voice boomed out, strong and strident.

"Don't you worry, Mrs. Featherington! I'll kill those window banging varmints as soon as I see 'em!"

Moe's eyes flew open. He grabbed hold of Curly's arm. "We gotta get outta here!" he hissed.

"Where to?" Curly panicked. "We can't go that-a-way because he'll see us! And we can't go this-a-way, because this big ol' house is in the way!"

Moe's glittering blue eyes darted around, looking for a means of escape. He craned his neck and looked up, and what he saw made him grin widely with relief. He pointed to an open window behind a balcony up on the second floor. "Then how about we go up-there-a-way?" he said, excitedly.

"How are we gonna get up there-a-way? Fly-a-way?" asked Curly, squinting in confusion.

"No, you dimbulb! _Climb-a-way_!" Moe slapped Curly's arm and pointed to an ivy covered trellis that clung to the brickwork nearby. "You can climb, can't you? All monkeys can climb!"

"Hmmmm!" muttered Curly. "It just so happens I'm afraid of heights!"

"Oh, you'd prefer a round of buckshot in your pants?" Moe snapped, heading for the trellis.

Curly frowned thoughtfully. He spent a considerable few moments internally debating whether he'd prefer to be shot in the backside or fall out of a twenty foot high trellis. Of course, being shot in the backside would possibly lead to falling out of a twenty foot high trellis...

Finally the realization dawned on him that it really wasn't up to him at all. Moe was the decision maker, and what Moe said, went.

With his mind made up for him, Curly woo-woo-wooed and crashed through the bushes after Moe, who was already climbing steadily up the wall.

"Hey, Moe! Hey, Moe! _Wait for me_!"


	4. The Great Stoogini

**Chapter 4 **

**The Great Stoogini**

Larry shrugged off his jacket and removed his shoes. Standing just 5ft 4 inches tall in his socked feet, the perpetually bewildered ex-Stooge was dwarfed by the opulent surroundings of his magnificent new bedroom. The ceiling was so high it made him dizzy to look at it. Underfoot, the soft, thick carpet felt springy against his toes. The deep red wallpaper was silky to the touch and threaded with reflective golden strands which could have been made of real gold, for all he knew. The bed itself was huge- not so much King sized as country sized. Larry reckoned all the elephants of Barnum and Bailey's circus could have fitted into it, and there'd still be room on the edge for a couple of clowns.

And talking of a couple of clowns... Larry threw his jacket onto a nearby chair and sighed. It was mean of him to have pulled the curtains on Moe and Curly like that. But what else could he have done? His wealthy benefactor was offering him a brand new life, and wasn't life about seizing every opportunity you could to better yourself?

Larry pulled back the thick satin comforter and luxury cotton blankets and crawled in. He really did feel exhausted now. He had a bellyful of rich food and a head full of whirling thoughts. A gentle breeze against his cheek reminded him that the window was partly open to let in the fresh air, but he was too tired to get up and close it. He yawned, smacked his lips, and closed his eyes. As soon as his bushy head hit the mountain of pillows, he was out for the count and snoring gently.

Just a few moments later, the silence was shattered by Moe falling head first through the open window, showering the carpet with ivy leaves. As the chief Stooge shook his head and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, Curly squeezed through the window and landed right on top of him, knocking him flat again.

"You idiot," Moe growled, and slapped Curly's head. "Why don't you look where you're going?"

"Because I was too busy goin' where I was lookin'!" Curly retorted.

Moe scrambled to his feet and brushed himself down. "Well, at least we're out of the way of that gun totin' goon down there." He put his hand on Curly's arm to still him. "Look!" he hissed, suddenly. "There's someone in the bed!" He pointed to the lump under the blankets, at the top end of which was a tangled mess of springy red hair. "It's Larry!"

"Maybe the mattress is burst," Curly suggested, twiddling his fingers together nervously.

"Naw." Moe crept closer. "It's Larry, all right. I'd recognise that porcupine's nest anywhere."

Curly and Moe approached the bed, where Larry was snoring softly and contentedly.

"Look at Sleeping Beauty," Moe whispered.

"Looks more like her sister, Snoring Ugly," Curly whispered back.

"C'mon, slug, get in." Moe pulled back the covers and crawled into the bed on one side of Larry, and Curly crawled in on the other.

"Just like home," Curly smiled, closing his eyes. "If home wasn't the City Dump!"

"Hey!" Moe reached over Larry and smacked Curly on the head. "Don't get comfy!"

"Fat chance with you around," Curly muttered, rubbing his temple.

Moe began shaking Larry's shoulder. "Larry! Porcupine! Wake up!"

Larry frowned in his sleep as the whole bed started shaking. "Oh, vibratin' bed, eh," he mumbled, shrugging off Moe's hand.

Not one to be put off that easily, Moe slapped Larry soundly on the forehead. "I said, _wake up_!"

Larry's eyes slitted open groggily. The first thing he saw was Curly's cross-eyed, grinning face only a couple of inches away from his. "Nyaargh!" he uttered. "I'm having a nightmare!" He rolled over three quarters of the way and saw Moe laying in the bed behind him, wearing his trademark scowl. "I'm having _two_ nightmares!" With that, he pulled the blankets right up over his head and hid.

"How d'ya like that?" Moe grunted. He reached under the blankets and pulled out a strand of Larry's hair with a twang. Larry squeaked in pain. "Get up here," Moe growled, uncovering Larry's head.

"Why don't you nightmares just go away and leave me alone!" Larry complained, still only half awake.

"He's delirious!" Moe muttered. He leaned over and put his mouth next to Larry's ear. "Hey, birdbrain, we've come to get ya outta here, before that ditzy broad has ya rollin' over doing tricks!"

"What are you talking about?" Larry grumbled, refusing to open his eyes.

"Why else would a society dame want someone like you?" Moe continued. "For your looks?"

"She _likes _me," Larry replied, impatiently.

"Society people don't like people like us," Moe countered. "They might be curious, but that ain't the same thing. They see us the same way they see animals. Things to entertain themselves with."

"That's bull," Larry snorted. "But then, you _are_ a nightmare and they never make much sense." He snuggled down and sighed. "Good thing you'll be gone when I wake up."

Moe glanced at Curly. Curly blinked a few times but remained silent. "The one time when I need you to say something, you clam up," Moe scowled.

"Whaddya want me to say?"

"Tell him why we're here!"

Curly slapped Larry on the forehead. "Hey, Larry! Wake up and go to sleep!"

Moe shook his head wearily. "Never mind," he grumbled. He returned his attentions to Larry. "Why d'you think you were drinking out of a bowl on the floor?" he muttered. "Because she wants a pet, not a partner!"

Larry smiled dreamily. "She thinks I'm cute like a cocker spaniel," he giggled.

Moe's eyes widened and his mouth fell open. "_Cocker spaniel_? You see? It's started already! We gotta get you outta here!"

Larry clutched the blankets tightly around him as Moe and Curly tried their hardest to rouse him out of the bed. "No can do," he said, stubbornly. "There's a party tonight with fortune tellin' and everything, and I ain't missin' it for the world. Besides, I know you're just a bad dream caused by too much rich food. Now go on, scram right outta my head before I beat you out!" The bushy haired Stooge pulled a fist out from under the blankets and began hitting himself on the head. "Amscray outta my eadhay! Go on, _get_!"

Moe watched Larry repeatedly bopping himself on the skull. "The poor kid's punch drunk," he said, sadly. Then a lightbulb almost visibly snapped on over his paint flecked bowl cut. "Hey, pudd'n head, did he say there was a party tonight?"

"Yeah," Curly nodded. "Fortune tellers! Nyuk nyuk!"

"Fortune tellers, eh?" Moe's beady eyes narrowed. "That gives me an idea." He threw back the blankets and clambered inelegantly out of the bed, then went over to the window and peered out across the grounds. "Daniel Boone's gone," he said. "C'mon, Curly, we got work to do."

There was a soft sound of snoring behind him, coming from the bed. Moe turned around to see both Curly and Larry fast asleep with their arms slung affectionately over each others shoulders. Moe folded his arms and stood a while, watching his compatriots romp through the land of slumber like an indulgent father who comes to check on his children in the middle of the night. Then he stooped down, picked up one of Larry's shoes and hurled it with remarkable accuracy at Curly's head, striking the bald Stooge directly on the crown. Curly sat up and glared at Moe, who was already brandishing the second shoe lest Curly need a little more 'gentle persuasion'.

"Shoo, shoe!" Curly grumbled, waving his arm out at Moe.

"Heel, heel!" Moe snapped, gesturing to Curly to get out of the bed and follow him.

"Ain't you got no sole?" Curly remonstrated.

Moe flung his arm back as though about to pitch a baseball. "Sure I do, it's right here on the other shoe! Want it?"

Curly brightened. "Why, soitenly! Then I'll have a matching pair!"

"Yeah," said Moe, "a matching pair of black eyes!" He threw the second shoe. It smacked Curly right in the face then deflected sideways and knocked the expensive looking lamp off the bedside table with a loud clatter. "Now you can really call yourself well-heeled," Moe snickered.

Curly scrambled out of the bed. "Hmmmm!" he grunted, slapping his own face.

"Larry? Are you all right?" came a worried female voice from down the hall.

Moe froze. "It's her!" he hissed. "Come on, pelican, get snappy! We gotta get outta here!" He ran over to Curly, grabbed him roughly by the arm started pushing him towards the window.

"Hmmm! I don't think much of your bedside manner!" Curly complained.

"Shaddap and get going!" Moe snapped.

From somewhere deep under the mountain of pillows and blankets behind them, Larry's low, groggy voice piped up. "Goodbye, nightmares, and don't ever come back."

Moe shoved Curly out of the window onto the trellis, then put his own foot out of the window ready to climb back down to the ground. "Oh, we'll be back, porcupine," he promised, his eyebrows drawing together in a sinister frown. "As for your nightmares- I think I'd better warn ya, you ain't seen nothin' yet!"

**…**

"Larry, my dear! You look absolutely charming!" Mrs. Featherington's face broke into a beaming smile as Larry entered the grand dining room wearing a tuxedo he had found laid out for him at the foot of the bed when he woke up.

"Thanks!" the wild haired ex-Stooge grinned. He looked at his gleaming cuffs, spread his hands out over the front of the exquisitely tailored jacket. "Where'd you find threads that fit me so well?"

"Your tuxedo used to be Philip's- he was exactly the same height and size as you," Mrs. Featherington explained. Upon seeing Larry's shocked expression, she quickly added, "but he never wore _that _one. He was very fussy about his appearance and had about a dozen spares!" Her hand went to her mouth to stifle a nervous giggle.

The colour crept back into Larry's relieved face. "Oh, well, I guess that's okay then." Quietly, he made a mental note not to wear anything Mrs. Featherington gave him without checking its providence first. He didn't relish the idea of walking around in a dead man's clothes!

Mrs. Featherington changed the subject swiftly. "So, did you have a nice sleep?" she asked, smoothing down Larry's already smooth lapels.

"Sure," Larry replied. "Except for the nightmares..." he grimaced as the cogs in his tiny brain began churning out bad memories.

"Nightmares? Oh, you poor thing! I do hope they weren't too ghastly!"

"Aww, I'm okay now," Larry smiled bashfully. "It's my fault for eating on an empty stomach."

"Well, as long as you're all right." Mrs. Featherington fussed over Larry's collar and tried to tuck his bushy hair behind his ears. "My ladies will be here any minute- they're simply dying to meet you. They want to know how on earth someone like me ended up meeting someone like you- in Dandy Street, of all places."

"Someone like me?" Larry frowned as Moe's words suddenly came back to him. But it hadn't really been Moe, had it? It had just been a nightmare, a bad dream. Then again, it had been a very realistic bad dream...so realistic that Moe had even brought Curly along with him. Larry bit his lip thoughtfully.

Mrs. Featherington laughed gaily. "Why, yes! Someone so very different to the sort of person they're used to. They're ever so curious!"

"Curious, eh." Larry blinked his blue eyes slowly. He remembered the lamp on the floor and the ivy leaves under the window that weren't there when he'd gone to bed. And then there was the pink spot on his forehead when he'd looked in the mirror- the sort of pink spot that would surface after a particularly resounding slap. He shook his head again, unable to make sense of it all.

"Oh, my poor, dear boy, don't look so worried! You won't even have to do a thing except sit there and smile at them. Mrs. Pierrepoint will love you- she has such a soft spot for waifs and strays."

_Waifs and strays._ Larry followed silently and obediently behind Mrs. Featherington as she bustled around the room straightening doilies and smoothing non-existent creases out of tablecloths. Suddenly he wasn't so sure he wanted his fortune told, after all.

**…**

The party was in full swing, although 'party' was possibly the wrong word for an affair consisting of five elegant but rather hoity toity Society ladies drinking tea out of china cups while reading Tarot cards and gazing at each others' palms.

Larry had been examined minutely from head to foot the minute the ladies had arrived. Mrs. Pierrepoint cooed and simpered and fluffed his hair as though he were indeed some scruffy stray dog Mrs. Featherington had picked up off the streets. Mrs. Clydesdale peered through a dainty lorgnette at him whilst keeping a safe distance, muttering something about 'fleas'. Mrs. Millwood-Turner visibly wrinkled her nose, and Mrs. Vernon-Dentham***** almost crossed the room in order to avoid making eye contact with 'a ruffian'. Far from being curious, Larry got the impression that all of them bar Mrs. Pierrepoint were thoroughly disgusted with him.

After an hour or so of sitting quietly and trying not to say or do anything to cause trouble, Larry found that he had somewhat blended into the furniture. Nobody was really paying much attention to him- his novelty value had worn off surprisingly quickly. It was only Mrs. Featherington who shot him an indulgent smile every now and again whenever she finished a palm reading or concluded her deciphering of the tea leaves in the bottom of someone's cup. Still, Larry was used to being in the background- his life with Moe and Curly had often seen him standing quietly off to one side while the rowdy belligerence of the other two pugilistic numbskulls took centre stage.

"Some party this is," Larry muttered. Looking around the room, he spied what looked like a cigar box sitting on a nearby table. His eyes lit up as he opened the lid and took one out. His boredom turned to pleasure as he sniffed the cigar appreciatively. He stuck it in his mouth and checked for a light. As luck would have it, there was a beautiful silver lighter sitting right next to the cigar box. Larry picked it up, admired it briefly, then flicked on the flame and held it to the other end of the cigar, puffing away contentedly until the smoky cheroot was burning nicely. He concluded that even if he didn't like the idea of wearing a dead man's clothes, he had no qualms about smoking that same man's cigars.

Lounging in his comfy armchair with his head enclosed in a blueish cloud of fresh cigar smoke, Larry was just beginning to feel like the man of the house (at least in his own head) when the doorbell chimed loudly. He swallowed a mouthful of smoke and began to cough violently.

"Good heavens," Mrs. Featherington exclaimed. "We weren't expecting anyone else!"

"How inconvenient!" Mrs. Vernon-Dentham murmured.

"Never mind, Roberts will see to it." Mrs. Featherington attempted to return to a particularly intriguing Tarot reading she was doing for Mrs. Pierrepoint. "Now, this card here, the Two of Swords, indicates turmoil..."

The door to the dining room promptly burst open and two short men of alarming appearance hurtled through in a whirwind of swirling cloaks, top hats and handlebar mustaches. Behind them came the butler Roberts, flailing his long spindly arms in a panic.

"I couldn't stop them, Madam! I just couldn't stop them!"

The two men were carrying an array of different sized boxes and cabinets which they unceremoniously dumped onto the nearest table with a loud clatter.

"Madame!" bellowed the slightly smaller one. "The Great Stoogini at your service!" He removed his top hat, revealing slicked back, jet-black hair, and bowed so low that the twirly ends of his ridiculously long mustache almost scraped the floor.

Shocked out of his wits, Larry flew into an upright position in the armchair. More cigar smoke got stuck in his lungs and he coughed and hacked, choking on the thick tarry residue. The larger man rushed over and thumped Larry hard between the shoulderblades, bringing tears to his already stinging eyes.

"You chokey on the smokey, eh?" the fat man shouted in a suspiciously high-pitched falsetto.

"I'm okay, I'm okay! Quit hittin' me!" Larry griped, while the fat man carried on pounding him.

"What on earth is going on?" Mrs. Featherington demanded. "I didn't arrange for this...this vulgar sideshow!"

"Ah, but the Great Stoogini is a Master Psychic! I received a message from the stars, you see!" The smaller man twirled his mustache and wagged his eyebrows knowingly.

"Did the stars say you could gatecrash our party?" asked Larry, indignantly. The larger man was still hitting him on the back and he got up and pushed him away, forcefully.

"'Gatecrash'? Why, no! I prefer to call it a heavenly invitation," the smaller man said, proudly. "Behold! The Great Stoogini goes where the fates direct him! And now, I shall proceed to read your fortunes!" He swirled his cape dramatically, smacking the larger man in the face with it. "May I introduce my assistant, The Not-So-Great Dimwitti, who will proceed to unlock the mysteries of the future!"

The larger man went "hmmmmm!" and waved his arm out, then opened up one of the cabinets and dumped an array of 'fortune telling' paraphernalia onto the table, most of which fell off and ended up on the floor. Amongst the debris was a pair of dice, a roulette wheel, and a woman's frilly garter belt. The society ladies gasped in horror.

Larry pushed himself back into his chair as far as he could go, wishing the ground would open up and swallow him whole- armchair, cigar and all. Now he knew for certain that his nightmares had been all too real...

...and just as Moe had promised, they were back.

*****_Named after Vernon Dent, one of the Stooges' regular supporting cast members_


	5. Misfortune Tellers

**Chapter 5 **

**Misfortune Tellers**

Moe, aka The Great Stoogini, crossed the room with a great flourish and grabbed the hand of Mrs. Featherington before she had a chance to snatch it away. He pulled her hand up to his face and made a great show of studying the lines intently. Then he fixed her with a beady-eyed stare.

"I see that you have acquired a new companion!" he announced, darkly.

Mrs. Featherington, who had been about to shout to Roberts for assistance, closed her mouth and blinked nervously. "You do?"

"Ye-ess," Moe continued, peering intently at the Society lady's palm. "Why, he's as cute as a cocker spaniel!"

"Yes, he is!" Mrs. Featherington said, her eyes widening. "But how did you know?"

"It says so right here in your Line of Rosbanyas Benefuchi Fettucini Alimenti Karronji," said Moe, trying to make his mouthful of gobbledygook sound as exotic as possible.

"Now, look here!" piped up Mrs. Vernon-Dentham. "There's no such thing! There's a Lifeline, and a Heartline, and even a Loveline, but..."

"Quiet, shorty, I'll get to you later." Moe narrowed his eyes and glared at the snooty woman, shocking her into silence. "Now, this line here, see, this is called 'the Line of Anacanapan'. He pointed vaguely to the area around Mrs. Featherington's middle finger. "It means you don't know how to keep your nose out of someone else's business."

Mrs. Pierrepoint giggled, then quickly put her diamond ring-encrusted hand over her fuschia pink lips. The other ladies humphed and muttered and shifted uneasily in their seats.

"How dare you!" Mrs. Featherington blustered.

"Don't yell at me, lady, it's written right here. Destiny speaks to The Great Stoogini!"

Mrs. Featherington yanked her hand out of Moe's grip and slapped him so hard across the face that his top hat spun off and the mustache almost detached from the left side of his lip. "You insolent man!" she huffed.

"Hey, don't hit The Great Stoogini, you want him to really see stars?" Curly, aka The Not-So-Great Dimwitti, came running over, swirling his cloak behind him.

Moe replaced his top hat and patted his mustache back into place. "Fiery, eh? I shoulda known."

Mrs. Featherington turned to the butler who was still standing in the doorway. "Roberts, call the police!"

"With pleasure, madam," Roberts smiled, nastily.

"Now wait a minute," Moe said, attempting to restore order. "I'm just trying to predict the future. Sometimes the truth hurts!"

"I'll predict your immediate future, you horrible man, and I promise you it _will_ hurt!" Mrs. Featherington uttered.

"Wait a minute!" said Larry, ambling over with the cigar in his mouth. "I'd quite like to hear what these two fellows have to say about _my_ future!" He went over to Moe and stuck his hand out, palm upwards. "Go on, O Great Stoogini. Tell me what the future holds for me, I dare ya!"

"Why, certainly, I'd be delighted." Moe grabbed Larry's hand a little more forcefully than Larry would have liked, and stared directly into Larry's eyes with fierce determination. "See this line here? It's called The Line of Idiocy, and yours is certainly a big one! And this line here? The Line of Gullibility. Why, you believe everything you're told. And this line here? The Line of Letting Go. You have no problems getting rid of people in your life that you don't have any use for any more." Moe's fingers tightened painfully around Larry's knuckles, grinding the bones together.

"That ain't true," Larry countered, trying not to show pain and trying hard not to break eye contact first, knowing deep in his heart that Moe always won their staring contests. "You think you know everything about me, but you don't."

Curly appeared suddenly at Moe's side. "You can't talk to The Great Stoogini that way," he said, ominously.

"I can, and I will!" Larry puffed his chest out as much as he could without choking on cigar smoke. "I call fraud!"

"Why, you..." Moe's jaw clenched with fury. He leaned close to Larry. "Listen, chucklehead, you don't know what you've gotten yourself into. This may look like a life of luxury, but believe me, it's nothin' but a trap!"

"Oh, go on," Larry said, dismissively. "It's jealousy, that's what it is. You can't stand knowing I've got a better life than you."

Moe threw Larry's hand aside, and to Larry's surprise, broke eye contact first. The frizzy haired Stooge almost felt his former friend's gaze tear away from his like glued pieces of paper ripping apart. Far from being satisfied with the knowledge that the great Moe Howard had looked away first, Larry was shocked to discover that he was left with a sinking feeling, a feeling of dread, a feeling that something very bad had just happened.

"The police will be here any minute, madam," Roberts announced from the doorway.

"Oh, you want Speed Readings, eh?" Moe dashed across to the table where Mrs. Clydesdale was sitting with Mrs. Millwood-Turner and snatched a tea cup right out of her hand. He tossed the remains of the liquid out of the cup straight onto the floor and onto the luxury carpet. "Tea leaves, eh," he muttered. "I prefer the java beans myself." He peered into the cup and frowned. "I see great injustice! Hoodwinkery and chicanery! Lies and deceit!"

"I see deceit," Curly nyuked.

"Oh you do, do you?" Moe glowered.

"Yeah!" Curly pointed to Moe's posterior. "De seat o' de pants! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk."

The ladies all gasped in horror.

"Such vulgarity!" cried Mrs. Clydesdale.

"I also see cookies!" Curly leaned over and clutched at some dainty confectionery from a plate on the table with both fists, shoving them into his pockets.

"Well, I never!" cried Mrs. Millwood-Turner, going pale.

"Well, maybe you should!" Curly reached out and pinched Mrs. Millwood-Turner's cheek. "Cut loose and have a little fun, cutie-pie!" And then he winked.

Mrs. Millwood-Turner gasped in disgust and pressed a handkerchief to her face as the grinning Curly began munching on the sweet biscuits, spraying crumbs everywhere.

Moe grabbed a handful of Tarot cards and began shuffling them as if he were in a casino. "Lay your bets, Toots," he growled, before dealing them out like a card sharp. As Mrs. Featherington went scarlet and Mrs. Vernon-Dentham began gasping for breath, Moe grabbed a card from the top of one pile. "Ah! The Fool! This is a guy who goes through life without a single thought for anyone else!" He turned and fixed Larry with a glare of fury.

Larry ran across to the table and grabbed a card of his own. "Ah! The...the..." Larry peered at the card, unable to decipher the long word printed across the top. "The Helephant! A guy who thinks he knows everything!"

Moe snatched up another card. "Ah! The Hanged Man! A guy who smiles like a sap even when he's turned upside down!"

Larry grabbed the next card. "Ah! The King of Coins! A guy who's got a brand new life of riches and luxury that his former friends can't stand!"

Moe's jaw dropped. "Former friends, eh?" He snatched one last card. "Ah! The King of Slaps!"

"There ain't no such card!" Larry cried.

"There is now!" Moe shouted, and slapped Larry soundly across the face with the card, knocking the cigar flying across the room where it landed in a beautifully upholstered antique Queen Anne chair and began smouldering.

Larry clutched his face. His eyes glittered.

"Go annnn, I dare ya," Moe seethed.

Larry let fly with his other hand and cracked Moe hard across the jaw. This time Moe's mustache came away from his face and Larry reached out and yanked it off the rest of the way, holding it up like a rat he had just exterminated. "The Great Stoogini is no more!" he shouted.

Mrs. Featherington gasped in horror. She stared at Moe, who was busy rubbing his smarting jaw in pain, and then at Curly, who was quietly woo-woo-wooing and twiddling his fingers anxiously. She put two and two together and the penny finally dropped. "Why, it's those two scoundrels from Dandy Street!" she cried. "Roberts! Detain these men until the police get here!"

Roberts ran into the room and Moe and Curly scattered in different directions. Curly picked up a box and threw it at the gangly butler, who ducked out of its way. The box hit an expensive Tiffany lampshade and smashed it into a thousand pieces.

Moe grabbed a large cream cake from a nearby table and launched it at Roberts, hitting the butler squarely in the face. Roberts froze in his tracks with cream and sugar frosting falling from his chin in thick clumps. The Society ladies shrieked and swooned, grabbing at their pearl necklaces and fanning themselves with lacy handkerchiefs.

Roberts wiped eyeholes in the gunge with his clawed fingers, flicked the globs of cream aside, and resumed the chase. Moe scooted behind a chair and threw the piece of furniture into the butler's path. Roberts caught his feet in the legs of the chair and stumbled head over heels across the carpet, banging his head on a solid oak cabinet. He sat up, his eyes rolling for a few seconds, and then slumped over, unconscious.

Moe ran over to Curly and grabbed his cloak with both fists. "C'mon, picklehead, run!" He and Curly darted towards the open dining room door, but alas, it was too late. Four uniformed policeman came charging in, blowing their whistles loudly.

"There they are!" one officer exclaimed. He was about six feet tall and he dwarfed the two panicking Stooges as he spread his arms out and filled the doorway, completely blocking their exit.

"This way!" cried Moe, but another officer ran across the room and stood in front of them.

"This way!" cried Curly, but the moment he turned around, another officer was right there, causing Curly to bump right into a chest full of polished brass buttons. "N'yaa-aa-aargh!" Curly uttered, clanking his teeth together.

Finally, surrounded by policemen and furious Society ladies, Moe and Curly were forced to admit defeat. The two burliest officers grabbed the sullen Stooges by the arms and restrained them easily, even though the two smaller men were still struggling like rabbits caught in a trap.

Mrs. Featherington reached out and violently, purposefully, ripped the fake mustache from Curly's face. "Just as I thought. It _is_ them!"

Curly yowled in pain and then barked at Mrs. Featherington like an angry dog.

Larry came over and stood in front of Moe and Curly. He shook his head sadly. "You fellas should have left well alone when you had the chance," he sighed, looking directly at Moe. "You don't need me. You never needed me, except for when you needed someone to hit."

Moe thrust his jaw out and made one last, valiant attempt to break free from his restraining officer's vice-like grip, but for all of his grit and determination, he just wasn't strong enough. "What do _you_ know?" he growled through gritted teeth.

Mrs. Featherington stepped between Larry and Moe and started issuing instructions in a rising tone that bordered on hysteria. "Officers, take these...these _hoodlums _away, and lock them up safely where they'll do no more harm!"

"Yes, Mrs. Featherington," the officer in charge replied, with a salute.

Curly squinted his eyes at Larry, fixing the bushy haired ex-Stooge with a scowl worthy of Moe's best. "Oh, boids of a Featherington, eh? You rich folk are all alike!"

Larry found himself squirming in his tuxedo as the police officers began bundling the two Stooges out of the dining room and away from Mrs. Featherington and her snobby Society friends. As Moe and Curly disappeared from sight, he suddenly felt like a fish out of water, flapping around on the floor while everyone else walked around him, ignoring his plight. He looked around. No-one was looking at him, not even Mrs. Featherington. The only people who had even acknowledged his existence in the room had been Moe and Curly, and right now, they were busy being bustled into the back of a squad car. Just as he had been, countless time after time, when he had been part of their gang. Part of The Three Stooges, part of something that he belonged to.

Larry sighed and turned away. Somehow he had gotten himself into a mess without even trying. A _fine_ mess, he thought bitterly, playing on his own surname. He reached up and nervously scratched the back of his neck. He attempted to toy with the cigar in his mouth, and then realised the cigar had been missing ever since Moe had slapped it across the room. He blinked, wondering where the cigar had gotten to.

And then the beautiful Queen Anne chair across the room burst into flames.

The Society ladies screamed in terror as fire raged out of the beautiful antique, devouring the chair like a well-earned meal.

"Help!" cried Mrs. Clydesdale.

"Fire!" shouted Mrs. Vernon-Dentham, stating the obvious.

"Somebody do something!" wailed Mrs. Pierrepoint, making no attempt to do anything herself.

Without even thinking, Larry grabbed the nearest soda siphon from a silver tray and ran over to the raging inferno. He squeezed the nozzle and sprayed club soda all over the chair until the flames were reduced to nothing but tiny, impish sprites dancing across the armchair's smouldering skeleton. Then he gave one last squirt and the fire was completely put out.

Mrs. Featherington rushed over to Larry and threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, you brave, courageous man!" she swooned. "You adorable, clever boy! Once again, you've saved me from almost certain death!"

Almost as one, the other ladies flocked around the blushing, bushy-haired ex-Stooge and began fussing over him like demented hens flirting with the new rooster in town.

"Oh, isn't he wonderful?"

"Such a little darling!"

"What bravery!"

"I do believe he's the most adorable thing I ever saw!"

It was agreed that Larry had saved everyone's lives, even Roberts's. The dazed butler, who had by now picked himself up and dusted himself down and wiped his face (almost) free of soggy cream cake, was not best pleased to find that he owed his life to the scrap of humanity that madam had dragged in from the gutter that very morning. He bowed and nodded, but the minute his back was turned his benign smile twisted into a sneer of disgust.

Having spent most of the evening being all but ignored, Larry lapped up the attention. "It was nothin'," he beamed, modestly.

"It certainly was not 'nothing'," Mrs. Featherington cooed. "We could all have been killed! Why, I'll bet it was the work of those two maniacs, storming in here under false pretences to murder us and steal our jewelry!"

There was a general murmur of consent among the ladies as they all agreed that there had been a much more sinister motive behind The Great Stoogini's visit than they had at first thought.

"I shall press for the severest punishment against those two fellows," Mrs. Featherington assured them.

Larry's eyes flew open and he spoke up in defence of his former friends at last. "Now, hold on a minute, I'm sure they didn't mean to kill us. I used to know those guys, remember? They may be dumb, but they're on the level."

"And what 'level' would that be, street level?" Mrs. Featherington huffed. "Brawling from morning until night, and then going out to the houses of the wealthy and murdering everyone in their sleep!"

The other ladies murmured and nodded, getting quite worked up.

"No!" Larry cried. "Nothing like that at all!" He waved his hands to try and placate the clucking women. "Look, they only came here because...well, because they miss me and they wanted me to come home."

Mrs. Featherington scoffed loudly. "Poppycock!" she blurted. "Rogues like that don't form attachments. They're as basic as animals, they'll turn on the weakest ones and kill them." She patted Larry's arm and straightened his bow tie. "And now it makes me more happy than ever that I managed to rescue you from your fate- a life spent with those ill-bred hooligans, fighting all day and then murdering rich women at night."

Larry sighed and shook his head. "They don't murder people," he sighed.

"What about the fighting?"

Larry shrugged. "Can't argue with you there," he said.

"Very well, I shall give you the benefit of the doubt with regards to their motives. But then how do you explain my antique chair bursting into flames like that?"

"No mystery," Larry confessed. "A cigar got dropped by accident." He was careful not to tell Mrs. Featherington that it had been _his_ cigar. Or rather, a cigar that he had filched out of her dead husband's cigar box, even though he felt sure that they had all seen him smoking it.

"A cigar!" Mrs. Featherington's burst of relieved laughter washed over Larry like a warm blanket. "So there was no murder plot, after all!"

"There never was any murder plot." Larry felt his own sense of relief that Moe and Curly weren't going to be hauled before a judge and jury on murder charges. "No-one was ever going to be murdered and no-one was going to have their jewelry stolen, I promise you."

Mrs. Featherington hugged Larry so hard his eyeballs bulged. "You dear, sweet, wonderful man," she cried. "How can I ever repay you for your courage?"

**...**

Moe and Curly were fighting viciously over who got the bunk (which was nothing more than a bare plank attached by chains to the wall of the cell) and who got the floor (which wasn't any softer), when the prison guard arrived with a set of keys and began unlocking the heavy barred door.

"You better give this knucklehead the last rites while you're here, because if he doesn't give me that bunk, I'll moider him!" growled Moe, getting ready to slap Curly for the twenty fifth time.

"You were gonna moider me anyway," Curly retorted. "I made a note, remember?"

"Make a note of this," Moe snapped, and smacked Curly across the face.

"Fellas," the guard sighed, wearily. "I'm sorry to haveta break it to ya, but neither of you are gettin' the bunk. You're free to go."

Moe and Curly stopped arguing and turned to the guard at the exact same time. The guard was standing away from the door, and the door was swinging wide open.

"What is this, a trick?" asked Moe, warily.

"Yeah, it's a trick," the guard deadpanned. "I let you guys escape, and I lose my job. Whaddya think I am, nuts?"

Moe approached the door. "What gives?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Mrs. Featherington phoned the station and withdrew charges," the guard replied. "Said it was all a misunderstandin'." He looked the two dishevelled Stooges up and down, eyed their ridiculous Stoogini costumes, and gave them both a judgemental look. "Ain't it always," he muttered, shaking his head in bemusement.

Moe clapped his hands together. "You mean, we're really free to go?"

"Yup. Now do me a favour and scram, okay? I'm sick o' the sight o' ya, and the other prisoners are complainin' about the noise."

Moe grabbed Curly's cloak and with loud whoops of joy, the two Stooges flew out of the jail cell so fast that their feet hardly touched the ground.

"Keep runnin' and don't stop 'til we're out on the street," Moe instructed as they raced through the holding pen and up the stairs into the police station.

"Hey, slow d..." cried an unsuspecting junior officer carrying a pile of paperwork, just before Moe and Curly mowed him down and sent his sheaf of papers flying everywhere like confetti.

The two Stooges ducked around a couple more surprised officers, elbowed the station door open and hurtled down the stone steps outside until they were safely across the road and right out onto the other side of the street. It was only then that they stopped running and leaned against the nearest wall, doubled over and panting for breath.

"That was close," Moe gasped.

"I still think I should've gotten the bunk," Curly admonished.

"Shaddap about the bunk," Moe shouted. "We're free, you dolt!"

"Oh yeah," Curly realised. He lifted his face to the heavens and drew in a huge lungful of air. "I wonder what year it is?" he said. "I wonder whether my sweet wife and child will remember me?"

Moe slapped his face. "I wonder if there's an ounce of brain left in your head."

"Not the way you keep hittin' me!" Curly pouted.

Once they'd stopped quarrelling, the two ex-jailbirds gathered their breath and their wits and set off mooching down the street. It was late and the streetlights were on. They passed slowly under cones of light which made Moe's hair gleam like a puddle of oil and caused eerie shadows to slide menacingly across their drawn faces.

"Why'dya think the broad bailed us out?" Moe wondered aloud.

"Outa the kindness of her heart?" Curly offered.

Moe sneered. "Sure. That must be it."

"Nyuk nyuk nyuk," grinned Curly.

Moe slapped him. "Try again, genius."

"I thought I got it right!" Curly whined.

Moe's scowl looked frightening as they passed beneath another streetlight. "Rich folk don't have hearts," he snapped. "I'm tellin' ya, it must have been Larry. That polecat must've convinced her we were okay. And you know what that means?"

"No," said Curly, rather quickly. "And don't try to trick me into guessin', either."

"It means he's still havin' second thoughts. It means there's still a chance we can get him back!"

Curly studied the almost maniacal look on Moe's face. It worried him, and he whimpered like a puppy. "What makes you so sure we should get him back? He doesn't want to be with us any more!"

"And you think that's a reason to give up? Why, I oughta..." Moe raised his hand to slap Curly, but then stopped. "Anyway, it's not about what _he_ wants. It's about _us_. We're the Three Stooges, not the two Stooges, or even the one Stooge! Porcupine's a Stooge whether he likes it or not. He was born a Stooge and he'll die a Stooge- quicker than he realises if he doesn't give up his grand ideas and come home where he belongs!"

Moe stalked off down the street, filled with a renewed sense of purpose. Curly hung back nervously until Moe turned around and yelled at him to _get goin'. _

"Don't worry, kid," said Moe, setting his jaw with grim determination. "Everything'll be back to normal soon, you'll see."

Curly trotted briskly beside Moe, trying to keep time with Moe's footsteps as the leader of the Stooges strode purposefully along. "That's just what I'm afraid of," he squeaked.


	6. Trouble comes in Threes

**Chapter 6**

**Trouble Comes In Threes**

That night, after the furore had finally died down and the Society ladies had all bade him goodnight, Larry Fine had a bath. But not just any old bath. He grinned gleefully as Roberts was forced to mix the hot and cold water to exactly the temperature that he demanded, and giggled like a big kid as the grumpy butler grudgingly whipped up a mountain of soft, soapy bubbles. When Roberts was done, Larry waved him out of the bathroom as dismissively as though the man were nothing but an irritation. The butler left the room without even a glance backwards or a word of farewell.

Closing the door and locking it securely, Larry quickly stripped down to his birthday suit and climbed into the huge tub that was almost as big as a child's play pool. He sank down into the heavenly bubbles, rested his weary head against the cool porcelain and closed his eyes with a sigh. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a bath. A real bath, not just a quick splash in a wash bowl where the water and soap had to be rationed because everything the Stooges owned had to be shared between three people.

Steam rose in the bathroom until all Larry could see when he opened his eyes were piles of silky white bubbles in front of him. He blew them into the air, smiling as they floated gently upwards and then down again, like shreds of confetti at a wedding. Down at the other end of the bath his toes played with the taps, taps which he was quite sure were made of solid gold. He made a mental note not to get his big toe stuck in the faucet. That was the kind of thing that _Curly_ did.

Hot, soothing water held Larry in its gentle embrace and soft bubbles tickled his nose and left him smelling of lavender. He soaked in the tub for as long as he could, until the water began to get cold and the bubbles began to go flat, then he dragged himself out and dried himself off with the fluffiest, most luxurious towel he'd ever seen. He climbed into a stripey nightshirt, not even caring if the deceased Philip Featherington had worn it or not. Yawning with exhaustion, he went into the bedroom, crossed the beautiful soft carpet which tickled his bare toes, and crawled into the enormous bed with its pillows like fluffy marshmallows. He stretched his arms and legs out, taking up as much room as he could, blissfully aware that no-one was bopping him on the head or drooling over him while they snored.

Larry fell asleep almost immediately, and dreamed of blue skies and marshmallows all night long.

**…**

The next morning, after a sumptuous breakfast, Mrs. Featherington bundled Larry into the back of the Daimler.

"We're going shopping," she declared.

"What for?" the frizzy haired ex-Stooge wondered. "Don't you already have all you need?"

Mrs. Featherington laughed, gaily. "My dear boy! Nothing raises the spirits more than a shopping trip. I want to dress you up and show you to the world!"

Larry settled himself obediently onto the plush leather upholstery next to Mrs. Featherington and gazed out of the window as Jenson started the engine. _At least new clothes means I won't have to keep wearing her dead husband's_, he thought to himself as the car began gliding down the long, sweeping drive.

At the bottom of the drive, as the Daimler sat waiting for the huge wrought iron gates to open, there appeared a small commotion in the bushes over to the left hand side, just outside of the entrance. As Larry watched with interest, the bushes quivered and trembled, scattering leaves onto the ground. And then a cat ran out, straight across the gates in front of the Daimler.

A black cat.

Mrs. Featherington bolted upright in her seat. "Jenson! Did you see that?"

"Must have been a stray," Jenson replied. "Nothing to worry about."

"But, Jenson! A black cat crossing one's path is a sign of bad luck!"

"In that case, here comes another one to cancel it out," said Jenson, as another black cat leapt out of the bushes and followed after the first one.

Mrs. Featherington blanched and squeezed Larry's arm. "Oh, dear!" she uttered in a tremulous quiver.

Another black cat appeared, and then another. Suddenly the entrance to the Featherington estate was swarming with frisky felines, which yowled and spit and squabbled as they raced from one gatepost to the other.

"Jenson! Turn the car around!" Mrs. Featherington cried. "We can't go out today, we simply can't!"

The weary chauffeur raised his eyes to look at his employer in the rear view mirror. "It's just a few cats, Mrs. F," he protested.

"Just a few cats? Why, there are dozens of the things!"

"Yeah, it's a _cat_astrophe," Larry said, and then grinned at his own bad pun. _Take that, Curly! _Then another thought struck him. "Mrs. F," he continued, "I think I know where those cats are coming from." He peered through the Daimler's window at the bushes, as far away as they were. "If I ain't mistaken, I think '_The Great Stoogini_' might have something to do with it."

Mrs. Featherington's face fell, and then her brow furrowed into a stony frown. "Of all the nerve," she muttered. "After I phoned the police to have them released!"

"Don't worry about it." Larry patted Mrs. Featherington's arm to reassure her. "I know how those guys work. They'll make a pest of themselves and then they'll get bored. Meanwhile, I think we should show 'em who's boss and go on our shopping trip just the way we planned."

Mrs. Featherington looked at Larry dubiously. "Are you sure?" she asked, nibbling at her lower lip.

"Quite sure, my petal," Larry said, soothingly. "Besides, you got nothin' to worry about. Your little poopsie-woopsie will take care of ya." With that, Larry fixed her with the most ingratiatingly cheesy grin he could muster.

It seemed to work. Mrs. Featherington relaxed slightly. Her lips trembled into a half-smile and she threw back her blonde curls in an attempt to appear carefree. "Very well, my little snookums," she trilled. "Jenson, we're heading into town after all!"

Jenson let out a sigh of relief. "Very well, madam," he grunted, and stepped on the gas before his airheaded employer had a chance to change her mind.

As the Daimler swept smoothly through the gates, Larry stared into the bushes and stuck out his tongue. Although he couldn't see his erstwhile friends, he knew they were in there somewhere. He hoped that Moe was seething with rage and that Curly would take all the boppings that he, Larry, would have taken if the circumstances had been different.

It had taken Larry all these years to escape from that life of eyepokes and punishment, and now that he'd done it he had no intentions of returning. He settled back in his seat, patted Mrs. Featherington's arm, and prepared himself for a day of being showered with all the expensive clothes and trinkets he could think of.

**...**

"How d'ya like that," grumbled Moe as he bundled Curly into the passenger side of their beat up old truck. "All those black cats and nothin' to show for it."

"Speak for yourself!" cried Curly, whose face and arms were covered in dried blood, bites and claw marks.

"Go annn, get in," Moe scowled. With Curly safely ensconced in his seat, he went around to the driver's door and clambered in, rocking the truck on its squeaky old suspension.

"'_I've got a great idea, I know somethin' that'll really woik_'", Curly whined in imitation of Moe. He stared forlornly at the scratches covering his arms. "And you call yourself the brains of the outfit!"

Moe gunned the engine, ignoring the way it belched and spat black smoke. He tried not to compare their ancient jalopy to the sleek animal that had passed by their noses not five minutes before as they hunkered in the bushes. "If you want to cry about it, blame Larry," the soup bowl haired Stooge muttered. "Did ya see the way that weasel stuck his tongue out at us? Why, I wanted to reach in there and rip it out by the roots!" He put his foot down hard on the accelerator pedal and fed the steering wheel hand over fist in a clockwise motion. The truck roared into life, chewing up the grass as it hurtled out onto the road.

"Yeah," Curly murmured, holding onto the door frame as the truck bounced along. "Maybe he ain't as dumb as we look, after all."

Moe narrowed his eyes and stared through the windshield, once again gripping the wheel until his knuckles turned white. "Oh, he's as dumb as we look, all right." And then he did a double take. "Wait a minute!"

"Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk," chuckled Curly. Two seconds later, Moe cracked him one doozy of a backhander across the head.

"Owww!" Curly pouted, rubbing the one spot on his head that hadn't been clawed to ribbons by a cat.

"Pipe down, muskrat, the day ain't over yet," the chief Stooge rumbled. "We got plenty of work to do." He pushed his foot to the floor, ignoring Curly's frantic bleatings. "Yes, sir," he continued, almost talking to himself now. "If porcupine thinks he's home free, I'm telling you, he's got another think coming!"

**…**

Mrs. Featherington and Larry were almost at their destination, the exclusive end of town, when Jenson put his foot on the brake and the Daimler rolled to a stop.

"Jenson! Why are we stopping?" asked Mrs. Featherington. She had been cooing over Larry on the back seat and now she sat up and leaned forward, leaving Larry with a happy grin on his face and his cheeks red from being tickled and pinched.

"There's a sign up ahead," the chauffeur replied. "It says, 'Diversion'. Or rather..." he squinted through the windshield, "...'_DIVerSHun_'."

"Very well," Mrs. Featherington sighed. "You'd better do what it says."

Jenson raised his eyebrows. The sign was clearly written by an illiterate and he didn't believe it for one second. However, orders were orders. He swung the Daimler down the side street indicated by the wobbly arrow on the sign and carried on his way. The side street was narrow and dirty and litter crumbled under the Daimler's tires as it rolled along. Shortly after turning off the main street, Jenson knew they were in trouble. There was no other way out of the side street, which continued to narrow until finally it came to a dead end.

"We ain't goin' nowhere," he muttered, staring at the solid brick wall in front of the car. "That sign must have been put there by pranksters."

"Pranksters, eh," said Larry. "I bet I can guess who."

"Well, superstitions are one thing, but I refuse to be beaten by pranksters!" Mrs. Featherington tapped Jenson on the shoulder. "Jenson, the doors, if you will. We're walking!"

Larry sat upright. "We are?"

"Yes! There's nothing like fresh air to put one in the mood for a shopping trip. Besides, we're almost there anyway."

Jenson did as he was asked and opened the rear door, helping Mrs. Featherington out onto the pavement. Behind the Daimler, three more cars had followed the sign and there was now a small traffic jam in the side street with car horns tooting and drivers shouting at one another to '_turn the heck around_'. Except that there was nowhere to turn around, and more cars kept appearing at the top end of the street. Jenson sighed heavily and took out a packet of smokes, knowing he was going to be there for a while.

Larry proudly began to escort Mrs. Featherington into the smart end of town. As they left the side street and continued along the sidewalk, Mrs. Featherington gasped and pointed ahead. There was a ladder propped up against a vacant building. The bottom of the ladder was on the kerb and the top of the ladder was perched against the sill of an empty window that had no glass in it.

"It's bad luck to walk under ladders!" the Society dame cried.

Larry shook his head firmly. "No, it ain't. You've got to stop believing in all that mumbo-jumbo!"

"It may be mumbo-jumbo to you, snookie-wookie, but we would never have met without it." Mrs. Featherington smiled at Larry and tousled his hair.

"How did that happen, anyway?" Larry asked, curiously.

"Well, my horoscope yesterday said 'trouble starts with the letter 'S', and so we avoided our usual route down Simpson Street and ended up on Dandy Street, and there you were!"

Larry blinked. "Yeah, there we were," he mused. "The _Stooges_."

Mrs. Featherington's eyes widened. "The what?"

Larry shook his head. "Nothin'," he said, quickly. "Just thinkin' out loud. It happens, sometimes."

"Well," said Mrs. Featherington, returning her attentions to the obstacle in front of them, "I'm certainly not going to push my luck by walking under that ladder. We shall have to go around it." She put her foot out into the road and was promptly blasted by a truck horn. "On second thoughts," she stammered, jumping quickly back onto the pavement.

"C'mon, I'll show you there's nothin' to be worried about." Larry took a cautious step forward, checked to see there were no workmen around, and then skipped merrily under the ladder. "See?" He started doing a little dance. "Nothin' to be scared of!"

Mrs. Featherington watched him hop from one foot to the other, then twirl around with his arms in the air and shout "_Ole!_" She clapped her hands together daintily as the former Stooge showed off for her benefit, laughing when he began Russian dancing right there underneath the ladder.

"May I have this dance?" Larry held his hand out towards Mrs. Featherington.

"Oh, very well!" she cried, gaily. She pranced forward like a nervous, excitable filly, then dashed under the ladder with wild abandon and took Larry's outstretched hand.

"That's the spirit, Mrs. F!" yelled Larry, and twirled her around while she laughed.

"Oh, this is so much fun!" Mrs. Featherington declared. "When I was a little girl, I so wanted to become a ballerina!" As she twirled and pirouetted, she accidentally stamped on Larry's foot, crunching his toes painfully.

"It's a good thing you didn't," Larry winced, hopping up and down.

Mrs. Featherington continued to prance around like a little girl underneath the ladder. The second that she was out the other side, a bag of flour fell from the sky and burst all over her head.

Larry froze. Mrs. Featherington froze. A man and woman walking on the other side of the street froze. Some pigeons froze. Even time froze. After a pause that seemed like an eternity, Mrs. Featherington, covered in flour that billowed off of her in snowy white clouds, shattered the air with a plaintive, high-pitched wail.

Larry and several passers-by clamped their hands over their ears. As the flour-coated Society lady squawked and howled, Larry caught a movement coming from the window at the top of the ladder. He looked up to see Curly, waving his arm out in his trademark gesture, and Moe, wearing a triumphant grin that made him look like a rabid raccoon.

"I knew it," he muttered. "I just knew it!"

Moe blew him a kiss and a cheery wave, and then the two Stooges disappeared from sight. Larry shook his head irritably, then began to fuss over Mrs. Featherington. He tried to brush the flour from her hair and the luxury fur stole around her neck, but every attempt he made seemed only to spread it further around. As he batted the white substance around from one part of her body to the other, Larry silently cursed Moe, wishing for all kinds of ailments to befall the chief Stooge, including festering boils, mould on the tongue, killer bees, biting ants, and a nest of tarantulas taking up residence in his hair. Preferably all on the same day.

"I knew we should have stayed at home, I just _knew_ it! As soon as I saw those cats," Mrs. Featherington cried. Her watery blue eyes blinked rapidly in her ghost white face.

"But, my sweet, these things can happen to anyone," Larry wheedled, knowing darn well that these things were much more likely to happen to people who were unfortunate enough to be acquainted with Moe and Curly Howard.

Mrs. Featherington stared glumly down at her flour covered coat. "And now, once again I'm stuck in the middle of town without a car. What on earth am I going to do?"

"Oh, that's easy!" Larry grinned. He stepped to the edge of the kerb, looked up and down the street, then put two fingers in his mouth and let out the loudest, most ear-shattering whistle you ever did hear. Heads turned abruptly and people stared and giggled at the hysterical Society lady standing on the side walk like the abominable snowman dressed in pearls while the short, wild-haired guy she was with waved his arms and whistled like a crazy man escaped from a lunatic asylum.

"I shall never live this down," Mrs. Featherington moaned as a beat up old taxi cab pulled up in front of Larry.

"Where to, Mac?" the driver asked around a juicy wad of chewing tobacco.

Larry pulled open the creaky rear door and grabbed Mrs. Featherington's arm before she had a chance to bolt away up the street. "The Featherington Estate, my good man," he smiled.

"No, but seriously," the cabbie drawled as Larry and Mrs. Featherington slid across the tatty rear seat and slammed the door behind them.

"Seriously," Larry replied, arching his eyebrows loftily. "The Featherington Estate, signor, and don't spare the horses!"

The cabbie threw them one last look of disbelief in the rear view mirror, muttered something they couldn't hear, spat a stream of tobacco juice out of his window, and pulled the taxi out into the flow of traffic.

"We can have our shopping trip another day, my sweet," Larry soothed as Mrs. Featherington began shaking with delayed shock.

"I'm sure I shall never be able to leave the house again!" Mrs. Featherington burbled.

"Everything's going to be fine, you'll see." Larry put his arm around Mrs. Featherington's shoulders and squeezed, and a cloud of flour billowed up and made him cough.

"Hey! Watch the décor!" The cabbie glanced at Larry in the mirror with his dark, surly eyes.

"Don't worry, you'll get a good tip," Larry promised.

The cabbie shrugged. "Music to my ears," he muttered.

"But I don't carry money with me!" Mrs. Featherington exclaimed.

The taxi screeched to a halt.

"Come again, sister?" the cabbie said, warily.

"Then how do you pay for your purchases?" asked Larry, wearing an almost identical look of surprise as the cabbie, but without the menacing eyebrows.

"Why, I charge everything, of course! That's what you do when you're as fabulously wealthy as I am!" Mrs. Featherington squared her shoulders as haughtily as she could under her blanket of flour.

The cabbie thumped the dashboard in disgust. "Okay! I've hoid enough. Out! The two of ya! Freeloaders!"

"But..." Larry began.

"But nothin'! Scram, ya bums!"

"Okay, okay, keep your hair on." Larry pushed the door open and almost fell out onto the street. Mrs. Featherington scrambled after him, her legs akimbo like a horse falling at the first fence.

"Won't you take a check?" Mrs. Featherington asked the cabbie, who was now wearing a scowl that would have put Moe to shame.

"Do I look like an idiot?" the cabbie thundered.

"We-ell," Mrs. Featherington started.

The cabbie spat tobacco juice right onto the kerb next to Mrs. Featherington's patent leather high heeled shoes, making her jump back in alarm. "That's what I t'ink of your _check_," he grunted, then peeled away from the pavement into the traffic, leaving Larry and Mrs. Featherington standing there with no money and no transport.

"Now what do we do?" Mrs. Featherington wailed.

It was then that a rusty old truck belching thick black smoke rattled up to the kerb, and a man with a black soup bowl haircut leaned his elbow on the door and smiled at the pair of them, his blue eyes glittering with mischief.

"Going my way?" he grinned.

Larry put his head in his hands and felt his heart plummet through his feet like an elevator descending straight to Hell.

_As if the day couldn't get any worse..._


	7. If You Love It, Let It Go

**Chapter 7**

**If You Love It, Let It Go**

Moe got out of the truck and regarded Larry and Mrs. Featherington with the same judgemental look the prison guard had bestowed upon him and Curly.

"How the other half lives," he said, lending an ironic twist to his already smirking lips.

Larry stuck his lip out, but said nothing. Secretly he wanted to pick up a two by four from the back of the truck and splinter it into a million pieces on Moe's stupid bowl head haircut.

"Get in," said Moe, sweeping his arm towards the open driver's door.

"We will not!" said Mrs. Featherington, stubbornly. "We shall wait for Jenson."

"Don't waste your time, it's gridlock back there. Why, some fool put up a trick sign and now there are twenty cars stuck down a side street."

"Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk," laughed Curly quietly from inside the truck.

"Then we shall walk!" Mrs. Featherington asserted. "It's only a few miles!"

"Looking like that?" Moe said, reasonably. "Think who might see you."

Mrs. Featherington stared dismally at her arms and the front of her coat.

"The rest of you's even worse," Moe told her, helpfully.

Mrs. Featherington turned to Larry, who was slowly trying to sneak away without anyone noticing. "Snookums, dear, It appears we have no choice but to accept a lift from these," Mrs. Featherington fixed Moe with a look of disgust, "..._gentlemen_." She reached out and grabbed the end of Larry's sleeve.

"You first, Toots." Moe went to take Mrs. Featherington's arm but she pulled it away quickly. "Just bein' chivalrous," he grunted.

"I don't need chivalry from the likes of you," she sniffed.

"Suit yourself," Moe shrugged, then, as an aside to Larry, "what a charmer!"

Huffing and puffing indignantly, Mrs. Featherington clambered up onto the truck's running board, making a great show of trying not to touch anywhere on the truck that Moe might have touched. She arched her elegant posterior away from the driver's seat entirely, but couldn't avoid her coat brushing against the steering wheel. She slid gingerly across the tatty upholstery and upon realising that she'd be sitting squashed up next to next to Curly, _touching_ him even, she let out a squeal of horror.

When Curly saw her flour covered face where the only points of colour were her pale blue eyes, he squealed in horror, too. "N'yaa-aa-aargh!" he cried, slapping his hands over his face.

Meanwhile, outside the truck, Larry blushed furiously and shuffled towards the open door, trying hard to avoid looking at Moe altogether. He put one foot on the truck's running board and grimaced when Moe slapped him lightly on the rump.

"Up you get, _Snookums_," the chief Stooge grinned.

Cursing Moe under his breath, Larry climbed into the truck and slid across the seat next to Mrs. Featherington. Then Moe hauled himself up into the driver's seat and slammed the door so hard that the whole truck wobbled and a cloud of flour erupted from Mrs. Featherington's hair, making Curly sneeze.

"Gesundheit," Moe grinned.

"Soitenly!" Curly replied, and dragged his dripping nose along his sleeve, causing Mrs. Featherington to screw her face up in disgust.

Moe started the motor and the truck began chugging down the street, bouncing and swaying on its non-existent suspension.

"So what's with the flour face, Toots? That the latest look among the country club set?"

Across the seat, Curly nyuk nyuk'ed quietly.

"None of your business," Mrs. Featherington said, dismissively.

"I can't say it'll catch on," Moe continued in a conversational tone, "except maybe at Halloween. Then again, what does a shmuck like me know about fashion?""

"I think _you_ know what happened," piped up Larry, squashed in between Mrs. Featherington and Moe.

"Oh? What are you insinuatin', porcupine?" Moe's tone remained light, but there was now an undercurrent of menace that Larry recognised all too well. He watched Moe's hands on the wheel for any signs that one of them might suddenly fly up towards his face. Already he could feel his neck muscles tensing.

"I'm not insinuatin' nothin'." Larry fell back into silence again.

Mrs. Featherington nudged Larry in the ribs. "_What _did he call you, Snookums?"

"'Porcupine'," Larry mumbled, wishing he could just disappear into thin air.

"'_Porcupine_'?" the Society lady blustered. "What sort of a name is that?"

"It beats 'Snookums'," Moe declared, his eyes narrowing.

"'Snookums' is a sign of affection!" Mrs. Featherington countered.

"Yeah? Well, so is 'Porcupine'!" Moe argued, clenching his fists tightly around the steering wheel.

Larry blinked. He craned his neck around and stared at Moe's angry profile. "It _is_?"

"Why, certainly it is! I..." Moe faltered, then screwed his face up into a scowl of fury. "Hey, you stay out of this," he snapped, and let Larry have it with a point blank slap to the cheek.

Mrs. Featherington gasped out loud as Larry whined and clutched his face. She reached behind Larry and thumped her closed fist down on top of Moe's head. "How dare you hit my snookie-wookie, you big bully!"

The truck swerved across the oncoming flow of traffic as Moe tried to duck away from Mrs. Featherington's blows. "Watch it, Grazilda, you'll have us all killed!"

"Your loss would be society's gain!" the rich lady proclaimed, as she carried on whacking Moe's skull. Car horns tooted and blared as the Stooges' truck slalomed in and out of the oncoming traffic.

Finally, Mrs. Featherington withdrew her arm from its vicious onslaught and Moe managed to steer the truck back to his side of the road. He breathed out such a huge sigh of relief that he sounded like a pair of industrial sized bellows deflating at the end of a long shift. "Phew, that was close."

Mrs. Featherington tried vainly to recover her last shred of dignity. "And don't let me hear you calling my beloved a 'porcupine' ever again," she huffed.

Moe frowned at the whole city through the windshield. "_Beloved_, eh?" he muttered.

Larry took the opportunity to pipe up again, now that the frenetic excitement in the cab had eased somewhat. "Yeah, 'beloved'," he repeated. "Guess it's too hard for you to admit someone loves me, ain't it, Moe?"

From the far side of the seat, Curly, who up until now had remained silent, let out a series of tiny, nervous 'woo woo woos'.

Moe slapped on a cheesy grin. "I guess there's no accountin' for taste, muskrat." He caught Mrs. Featherington pulling a sour face out of the corner of his eye. "I didn't call him 'porcupine', Toots, so don't go getting all upset."

Mrs. Featherington snorted. "The sooner we're out of this..._whatever_ it is, the better."

Moe slowed the truck down. "I can arrange that if you want," he said, ominously.

"Just keep drivin', Moe," Larry grumbled. "The sooner we're outta your hair, the sooner we can all get back to what we were doin'." He looked down at his hands folded in his lap like a little boy sitting quietly in church, with one leg pressed up against his father's and the other leg pressed up against his mother's._ Will I ever be allowed to feel like a full-grown man?_ he thought, mournfully.

"Yeah, what _were_ we doin', anyway?" Moe mused. "What were we doin', Curly? Weren't we goin' to pay a visit to those sick kids in the hospital?"

"Yeah!" Curly nodded. "And after that we was gonna take a bunch of old people to the zoo!"

"Yeah. What a day we were goin' to have! Bringin' smiles to the faces of the sick and the needy." Moe slid his eyes sideways and glanced at Larry. "And what were you doin', Larry? How were you gonna spend your day?"

"What's it to you?" Larry retorted, going red.

"We were going shopping for new clothes so that Snookums wouldn't have to wear those ugly rags any more!" Mrs. Featherington announced, grandly.

_Or your dead husband's castoffs_, thought Larry, but he remained silent. He didn't want Moe to get even a whiff of that, knowing that the crazy bowl head would never let it go.

"Oh, money no option, eh?" Moe muttered. "Funny, I was convinced there was a Depression going on." He shook his head, sadly. "New clothes. Something those poor, sick kids dream of, every day, along with getting cured."

Larry shifted uncomfortably.

"And those poor old people, without a decent meal in their bellies," Curly lamented. "At least at the zoo they could eat peanuts!"

"As long as they didn't mind fightin' the monkeys for 'em," Moe agreed, equally sombrely.

"Okay, that's enough," Larry grunted. "I don't wanna hear any more."

Moe sighed gustily. "What the ears won't hear, the heart can't feel," he said, seriously. "That's a quote, by the way."

"Oh yeah? Who said it?" asked Larry.

"I did," said Moe. "Feel free to make a note of it."

The truck turned off the main street and headed down the road that would eventually take them to the Featherington Estate. The city became the suburbs and then the suburbs became countryside, and soon there was more greenery passing by than buildings, more cows grazing in the fields than cars clunking haphazardly along.

"It sure is nice out here," said Moe.

"Yeah," said Curly. "All that fresh air!" he stuck his head out of the window and a large blob of bird excrement landed right in his eye. "Hmmmmmm!" he cried. "It's an aerial attack!"

"The birds know a birdbrain when they see one," Larry giggled, then shut up and put his hand over his mouth.

"Ain't too hard to guess which house is yours, eh, Toots?" Moe peered out of the driver's window as a huge, sprawling mansion appeared in the near distance, hidden in a large copse of American elm trees - it was the only man-made structure seemingly for miles around.

Mrs. Featherington said nothing, she was too busy slapping away Curly's hand, which kept deliberately creeping towards her knee.

Moe pulled up at the entrance to the Estate, just in front of the huge wrought iron gates. "Well, here we are," he said. "Home Sweet Home."

There was an intercom in the middle of the gatepost on the right.

"Call for assistance, Curly my good man," instructed Moe.

Curly leaned his head out of the window. "Open Sesame!" he yelled into the small metal grille. "Abry cadabry! Hoax 'em, poke 'em!"

A tinny voice wafted out of the intercom, laced with disdain. "The tradesmen's entrance is around the back." It was Roberts, sounding far from happy.

Mrs. Featherington leaned forward across Curly, making sure not to touch him as she did so. "Roberts, it's me, Mrs. Featherington," she said, irritably. "Please open the gates, and don't ask any questions."

After a brief pause, Roberts audibly sighed. "Very well, madam, as you wish."

Moe sat back in the driver's seat and watched the massive iron gates begin to swing open before his very eyes. "Nifty," he murmured, gunning the engine loudly like a racing car driver waiting for the checkered flag.

The gates opened enough to let the truck through, and up the drive they went. The beat up old truck stood out like a sore thumb as it chugged along in the grand surroundings. The smooth driveway snaked between carefully clipped hedges and beautiful topiaries shaped like birds, and further out across the lawn a small lake shimmered in the sun.

"You sure are lucky to live here, Larry," said Curly, his voice tinged with awe.

"Thanks," Larry muttered, wondering why he suddenly felt anything but thankful.

Moe parked right outside the grand front door, a solid oak affair in the middle of two huge marble pillars. "How's that for service?" he beamed. He pushed his door open and jumped out, waiting patiently like Jenson the chauffeur as first Larry, and then Mrs. Featherington climbed down from the cab.

"I suppose I ought to thank you," Mrs. Featherington said, grudgingly.

"What do you want to thank them for?" said Larry indignantly, dusting a patch of flour from his shoulders. "They're the cause of everything that happened today, don't you know that?"

"Calm down, crackerjack," said Moe. "I got you home safely, didn't I?"

Mrs. Featherington nodded curtly, mumbled something that sounded vaguely like _thank you_, and wasted no more time in heading for the front door, without so much as a backwards glance. "Come along, Snookums," she called.

Larry looked up at the huge mansion in front of him. "Home," he muttered. "Is this really my home now?"

"Not a bad place to live, I reckon," said Moe. He joined Larry in gazing up at the towering, ivy covered walls.

"Snookums!" cried Mrs. Featherington.

Moe looked scornfully at Larry. "Snookums," he snorted.

"Hey, I didn't tell her to call me that." Larry shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other.

"No matter. You're saddled with it now," said Moe.

"I don't really like it," Larry admitted.

"That's too bad," Moe grunted.

"Snookums!" Mrs. Featherington cried again. "Say goodbye to those hooligans so that they can get that filthy contraption off my driveway before it starts leaking oil all over the place!"

"Yes, dear," sighed Larry. He turned to Moe and Curly, who had jumped down from the cab and was now standing beside Moe, a forlorn look on his face.

"Well, mongoose, I guess this is goodbye," said Moe, scratching his head.

"Really?" Larry was surprised to feel his heart sink the way it did.

"Really," Moe nodded. "I thought it would be easy, but it's clear she's not going to give you up without a fight."

"You mean you fellas ain't gonna try and get me to come home any more?"

"Home?" said Moe. "I thought _this_ was your home now."

Larry rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly overcome with nerves. "I guess so," he admitted. "But..."

"But nothin'," Moe said, gruffly. He lifted his arms and put his hands on Larry's shoulders like a friendly bear. "I been thinkin', porcupine. Life is all about taking opportunities, and you got a big opportunity right here to make something of yourself. To _be_ someone. You've been livin' on the wrong side of the tracks for too long, kid. You deserve a break. That's why me and Curly are lettin' ya go. We figured, let the poor sap have a life. Let him be a success. Let him spread his wings and fly."

"Yeah!" Curly nyuked. "Like a pelican!"

"Quiet, you numbskull." Moe took one hand from Larry's shoulder and smacked Curly's face with it before replacing it gently on Larry's shoulder. "Look on the bright side, Larry. You won't have to put up with this picklepuss any more."

"Hmmmm!" muttered Curly, wagging his finger in Moe's face. "I don't have to put up with _you_!"

Moe slapped him again. "Yes you do."

Curly shrugged affably. "I guess that told me!"

"C'mere, porcupine, and give your old friends a hug." Before the bushy haired ex-Stooge even knew what was happening, Moe's arms were tight around him, crushing him in a vice like grip.

"I can't breathe!" Larry gasped.

Moe ignored Larry's protests and began slapping him soundly on the back, knocking even more air out of him. "You got me all choked up, ya fathead!" he said in a trembling voice. "Look at me! My eyes are waterin'!"

Larry pulled back and stared at Moe. The bowl head was grimacing all over the place with wet tear tracks running down his cheeks. Larry didn't know what was more frightening- an enraged Moe or an upset Moe. "I'm cryin', you idiot!" Moe sobbed, and then slapped Larry soundly across the face.

"What was that for?" Larry yelled, rubbing his cheek.

"Old time's sake," Moe howled. "Because that's the kind of sentimental guy I am!" He carried on sobbing, occasionally blowing his nose like a foghorn with a tatty old handkerchief pulled from his back pocket.

Curly began bawling like a baby. He staggered forward, reaching blindly for Larry like something out of a zombie film, or a mummy from ancient Egypt. Larry soon found himself crushed in another hug that felt more like a steel trap about to break every bone in his ribcage.

"Fellas, please," he bleated. "I'm not goin' anywhere, you'll still see me around!"

"No, we won't," Moe sobbed. "And even if we did, we wouldn't recognise you." He blew his nose again and a startled bird flew panicking out of a tree. "Not in your fancy new clothes!"

"And your new sports car!" Curly blubbed.

"On your way to the Country Club!" Moe spluttered, dabbing at his eyes.

"It won't be like that," Larry pleaded. "We can still visit."

"No," Moe blubbered. "It's best to make a clean break."

"But why?" asked Larry. "If it's that upsettin', why don't we stay in touch?"

"Because things don't work out that way," Moe sniffled. "Oh, porcupine, our lives will never be the same without you!" He covered his face with the handkerchief and honked into it like a flock of geese heading south for the winter, then set about bustling the sobbing Curly back into the van. "C'mon, kid," he wailed. "We've outstayed our welcome here."

Curly climbed into the cab, slid over to the passenger side and buried his face in his hands. Jets of tears forced their way out between his fingers and rained all over the inside of the windshield. "I can't bear to look at him any more!" he squawked miserably.

"Be brave, kid, be brave!" Moe cried. He turned back to Larry one last time. "Let me look at you, porcupine. Smile for me, kiddo. Let me remember you this way, with the sun on your face and your hair as wild and free as a swarm of Japanese hornets. That's the spirit!"

"Moe, wait...!" Larry threw himself at the truck just as Moe climbed in and shut the rusty old driver's door behind him. In a state of mild panic, Larry slapped the door with his open palms. "C'mon, Moe, I know what it looks like, but it ain't that bad. I'll still be in town. I can swing by the Dump every now and again."

Moe gazed down upon Larry's upturned face. "No, kid. It's better this way. You see, our worlds are much too far apart now."

"Only seven miles!" said Larry, throwing up his arms.

Moe shook his head. "It may as well be seven hundred miles."

"Seven hundred thousand miles," sniffled Curly.

Moe shot him a look of mild irritation.

"Seven hundred thousand million miles," Curly went on. "Seven hundred thousand million _billion_ miles. Seven hundred thou...OW!" he finished, as Moe cracked him squarely under the chin, clanking his teeth together.

Moe turned back to Larry, who was still gazing up at him with hopeful blue eyes. "Don't worry, kid. In time you'll forget us, you'll see." He turned the key and started the motor. The truck trembled into life and sat on the driveway, belching out clouds of thick, black smoke into Larry's eyes.

"Darn it, Moe, you had to get me one last time, didn't you?"

Moe reached down and handed Larry his old handkerchief. "Here," he said. "Knock yourself out, you patsy. Seeing as I won't be around to do it for you any more."

Larry reached blindly for the handkerchief and began wiping the oily residue from his eyes. It took him a few moments to get rid of all the messy grease that made his poor eyes sting so badly, and when he finally opened them the truck was already in the distance, rattling and clanking down the driveway towards the massive wrought iron gates which were opening up again, ready to spit the truck out onto the public highway like a piece of food dislodged from someone's tooth.

Larry closed his mouth. There was no point in saying anything now- Moe wasn't ever going to hear him. He looked down at Moe's crumpled old handkerchief. Once upon a time it had been white, he supposed. Through the dirt and grease, Larry saw that it was monogrammed in the corner with a tiny, swirly 'MH' carefully embroidered in dark blue. Larry folded it up and shoved it in his back pocket. "At least I have a memento," he sighed, to nobody but himself. And then Mrs. Featherington called to him from the doorway of the house, and he turned away from the drive and walked towards his new life with feet that felt spongy and slightly unsteady, as though they were made of clay.


	8. Once a Stooge

**A quick update of the last chapter, for ggirl1710, so you don't have to be sad anymore :)**

**Chapter 8 **

**Once a Stooge...**

For the next few days, Larry rattled around the mansion like a loose filling. Mrs. Featherington had many hobbies and interests that took her out of the house on a daily basis- her Astrology Club meetings, her shopping trips, coffee mornings, society luncheons, various appointments with her hair stylist, dress maker, milliner, to name but a few. Since there was nothing Larry really wanted to join her in doing, he was pretty much left to his own devices- and so he spent his time roaming around in every room, looking at things and trying not to break them. This was easier said than done, however, because Larry Fine was a born butterfingers. As he passed from one magnificent room to another, he hoped that no-one would notice the increasing number of small lumps under the carpet that hid the smashed remains of yet another china ornament or delicate crystal sculpture.

At first it was exciting. There was no Moe to jump out and slap him every time he broke something, or to call him an imbecile and make him feel smaller than he already was. But after a while Larry began to feel slightly lost- like the piece of a jigsaw puzzle that always goes missing or a boat adrift on a stormy sea. As much as he hated to admit it, with the Stooges he had been one third of an ensemble.

Then again, on his own he _was_ the ensemble, and he was free to act in any way he liked. Oh, if only he could make his mind up about what he wanted, things would be so much simpler!

One lunch time, with Mrs. Featherington gone, Larry ambled down to the kitchens to meet the mysterious Gussie and William. He trotted enthusiastically down the stairs and pushed the door open with a happy grin.

"Hey, everyone, how ya doin'?" he called, cheerily.

Gussie was a heavy set woman with a scarf tied around her head and an apron tied around her rotund waist. Her shocked expression when she saw Larry made him stop abruptly in the doorway. William was much younger, possibly her son. He jumped up from the kitchen table where he'd been sitting with a glass of lemonade and immediately tried to make himself look busy.

"Hey, you folks don't have get up on account o' me," Larry said, feeling awkward and embarrassed. "I just came to say hello."

Gussie looked flustered. "Was there something wrong with your breakfast, sir?" she asked, hesitantly.

Larry shook his bushy head, sending his curls tumbling. "No! No, my breakfast was perfect, just perfect! Like I said, I just wanted to say hi!"

William slunk around the table, eyeing Larry suspiciously.

"No-one comes down here just to say 'hi'," Gussie told him.

"Well. I do," Larry replied. "What's wrong with that?"

Gussie began nervously wiping the kitchen counters with a damp cloth, even though they were already pristine. "Everything's wrong with that," she muttered. "It ain't right for the classes to mix."

"What classes?" Larry asked, wide eyed.

William muttered angrily under his breath, earning him a swift cuff around the ear from Gussie that reminded Larry of Moe.

"Why, your class and my class," Gussie said, firmly.

"My class?" Larry came right into the kitchen, causing Gussie to visibly take a step back away from him. "What are you talkin' about, my class? I'm the same class as everyone else!"

Gussie shook her head. "No sir, you ain't. You're upstairs and we're downstairs, and that's how it oughta be, so everyone knows where they are. You start gettin' friendly, and next thing you'll be comin' down here and wantin' to eat with us too."

Larry sniffed the air, which was sweet with the aroma of dumplings. "You know, now that you mention it," he said, "that soup sure does smell good!"

Gussie flicked the cloth in irritation and started moving things around that didn't need moving. The cook's discomfort was clear, and after a few moments watching her flit around the room with a bee in her bonnet, Larry sighed with obvious disappointment.

"I didn't mean to cause any trouble," he said, gently. "It's just that, well, I'm all by myself up there. I used to have two friends I could talk to, see..." Silently he wondered about the fact he'd just referred to the other Stooges as 'friends', and felt his heart sink just that little bit more. "I guess what I'm tryin' to say is, I could use a little company."

Gussie's eyes flew wide. William stopped fidgeting and glared at Larry as though he might kill him.

Larry looked from one startled face to the other and suddenly he understood. "Not _that _kind of company!" he blustered, flailing his arms and turning beet red. "No, I didn't mean that at all!"

Gussie became more nervous than ever, her hands flapping like a bird in unconscious imitation of Larry. Meanwhile, William's lip was curling nicely into a youthful sneer of distaste.

"You know what, I think I'll just go," Larry said, pointing up the stairs. "Yeah, that's a good idea, right? I'll just...I'll just go." He promptly turned on his heel and raced back up the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him. Once at the top, and back in the quiet, luxurious surroundings of the empty mansion, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. "That was close!" he muttered, mentally adding Gussie and William to his ever growing list of People Not To Approach Under Any Circumstances.

Also on that list was Roberts the disapproving butler, and the gun-happy groundskeeper, Winslow. Larry had seen Winslow through the window and that was enough for the bushy haired ex-Stooge. The man stood around six foot four- a whole twelve inches taller than Larry- and possessed a large, ugly face that could curdle cream and hands that could literally squeeze the cider out of someone's Adam's apple, not just threaten to do it like Moe often did.

And there he was again, the infernal Moe Howard, intruding on Larry's thoughts like a cockroach that refused to be killed.

Realising that there was literally no one left in the house for him to talk to, Larry ascended the grand staircase and made his way to his bedroom. He no longer bothered to look at the portraits, they were the same as they'd been yesterday, and the same as they'd be tomorrow. He couldn't talk to any of them, and even if he could, he doubted they'd want to talk to him. They all had a certain look of entitled arrogance about them, and that was just the women.

Larry went over to the huge, mountainous bed and threw himself down on top of it. There was no denying it was a wonderful bed, but its cool embrace was little comfort to him right now. The silky feel of the luxurious comforter was all very well, but he would have much preferred to have a real, live human being around. One that didn't mind what 'class' he was, one that didn't mind him saying stupid things once in a while. "Even Moe," he said aloud, staring up at the ceiling.

He rolled over onto his stomach and stared out of the window. Being on the second floor, all he could see from this angle was a square of bright blue sky. "Just like the view from a prison cell," he murmured.

After a while the room became so quiet that he fancied he could hear a clock ticking, even though there wasn't one. He became acutely aware of a mild buzzing in his ears. He knew there was a word for it, besides 'ringing in the ears'. _Moe-itis_, he decided with an impish chuckle, before realising with a groan that yet again, he was thinking about Moe.

"Whaddaya want to think about that sap for," Larry said aloud, figuring that he may as well have a conversation with himself if nobody else wanted to. "You know he won't be thinkin' about you!"

"_But maybe he is thinkin' about you_," the inner voice replied. "_You saw him cryin' on the way out, didn't you?"_

"Sure, but who says those were real tears?" Larry replied. "Who says they didn't have onions in their pockets? You know who we're talkin' about, here. You forget I used to be one of 'em."

"_You sayin' that the great Moe Howard never shed a tear? Over anything?" _

Larry rolled onto his back again. He grabbed a pillow and held it to his chest. "Only when he lost money on a race, or at the fights."

The inner voice tutted. If it had had a body, Larry would have sworn it shook its head. _"Poor Moe," _it said, mournfully.

"Poor Moe?" Larry exclaimed in disbelief. "Hey, whose side are you on, anyways?"

"_I happen to think those tears were real,"_ the inner voice said quietly. _"When you think about it, what's a triangle without three points? A tricycle without three wheels? A trio without three trees?"_

"Moe doesn't need me," Larry said, gruffly. "He's got Curly."

The inner voice laughed. _"All the more reason why he needs you."_

Larry wrapped his arms around the pillow and squeezed it tightly.

"_Besides, I think you need him, too."_

"Oh, you had to push it, didn't you?" Larry shouted out loud. "You had to bring me into it. Now I know you're on his side! Go on, scoot!" He threw the pillow aside and jumped off the bed. "Okay, if you won't scoot, then I will!" Larry crossed the room to the door, but then he stopped. His hand, which had been reaching for the door handle, froze in midair. "Except I don't know where to go," he murmured. "I've been all round the house three times already- I've seen all there is to see and I'm runnin' outa things to break. Not only that, even if I did have somethin' to say, there's no-one to say it to." He spun around and faced the bed again. Suddenly the fluffy pillows and the thick, expensive comforter seemed a most attractive option. He went over to the bed and crawled in, fully clothed, just as he'd done on that first fateful day- only this time he didn't even bother to remove his shoes. He burrowed right down under the covers and just lay there, letting the time go by without him.

For the first time in his life, Larry Fine felt lonely. And for probably the five hundredth time in his life, he wondered if Moe Howard was thinking about him.

**…**

"Why, if that no good knucklehead was here now, you know what I'd do?"

Curly shook his head, nervously twisting his fingers together.

"I'd pulverize him!" Moe yelled, as the remains of yet another bungled decorating job fell down around them. "I'd tear him limb from limb and _then_ I'd murder him! If he wasn't lording it up with that fancy-dancy, he'd have been here to help us, and the job would have gone okay!"

Curly looked skeptical- when did any of their jobs go okay?- but said nothing. It was always best to let Moe's rage run its course, but since the departure of Larry, Moe's rage seemed to be trickling out of him daily like water from a cracked pipe.

And speaking of cracked pipes...

Curly winced as a lump of soggy plaster fell from the ceiling and broke into several mushy pieces on his head. It was a good thing the owner of this particular establishment wouldn't be back for three days- it gave him and Moe a chance to pack everything up and get away before the chaos was discovered.

"If I ever see that tangle haired porcupine again, I'll..." Moe disappeared into the next room, muttering and grumbling all the way, tearing at the sagging wallpaper with his clenched fists and rolling it into balls which he then hurled around the place like a man gone crazy in a bowling alley.

Curly waited until the boiling mad bowl head was safely out of earshot before putting his hands on his hips and looking around the empty room in which he stood, all alone. There was no Larry to conspire with against Moe- no Larry to look at and shrug as if to say, "_there he goes again_."

There was no Larry.

"It's okay, Moe, I miss him too," Curly said quietly, and set about picking up their paint cans and tools by himself.

**…**

Larry was ashamed at the fact he'd slept all afternoon. He went into the bathroom and washed briskly in cold water, then he changed into some of Philip Featherington's old clothes- a natty pair of baggy tweed pants and a white turtleneck sweater with a wide blue stripe across the front. Even in his depressed state, Larry studied himself in the full length mirror attached to the inside of the antique wardrobe door and had to admit that he didn't look half bad. He smoothed back his frizzy curls and cocked his head at a jaunty angle, then he cleared his throat and practised his toff talk.

"Say, Murgatroyd, I believe the Duchess is wintering in the Bahamas this year." He nodded at his reflection and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Read the news? Why, darling, I _am_ the news!"

Larry was just getting into the swing of pretending to be an aristocrat (even if it was only to himself in the mirror), when he heard an almighty wail coming from downstairs.

"It's Mrs. F!" he declared. He slammed the wardrobe door so hard that the mirror fell off and broke, then he dashed for the door and ran out into the hallway, taking a sharp left towards the grand staircase. At the top of the staircase he tripped over a suspicious lump in the carpet and went flying downstairs head over heels, tumbling towards the ground floor like a circus acrobat. At the bottom of the staircase the momentum kept him rolling over and over until finally he came to a stop at Mrs. Featherington's feet, landing in a perfect sitting up position with his legs straight out in front of him.

"What is it, my sweet?" he asked, looking up at Mrs. Featherington as though falling all the way downstairs was a natural occurrence- and of course, for a Stooge, it was.

"Oh, Snookums, terrible news," the Society lady wailed. "Gussie and William have resigned!"

Larry clambered to his feet and dusted himself down. The news sent a tremor of panic through his veins, but he thought it best not to say anything that might incriminate him. Besides, they might have resigned for a whole different reason.

"And just look at the date," Mrs. Featherington continued. "It's the thirteenth!"

"At least it ain't Friday," Larry said, in what he hoped was an optimistic tone.

"This is all too much," Mrs. Featherington moaned. "What else could go wrong?"

Sensing an opportunity to deflect the conversation away from Gussie and William, Larry grabbed it immediately. "Well, I broke the mirror inside the wardrobe," he said, surprisingly cheerfully.

Mrs. Featherington's face crumbled. "A broken mirror is seven years bad luck!" she howled.

"I put my shoes on the bed, too!"

Mrs. Featherington went whiter than when she had been covered in flour.

"But don't worry, it's all superstitious nonsense!" Larry grinned. "Besides, you've got your little poopsie-woopsie here to take care of you now. That's one good thing to come out of this mess, ain't it?"

Mrs. Featherington choked back a sob and looked Larry up and down with a hint of a smile playing at her lips. "You're right, Snookums. And since we have guests for dinner tonight, I've only one thing to ask of you."

"Yes, my dearest?" Larry asked, clasping his hands under his chin and smiling beatifically.

"How well can you cook?"

**…**

Mrs. Featherington's dinner party was in full swing. Her snooty society guests sat around her large banqueting table, tinkling crystal goblets together and toasting each others' successes in life. The men told jokes about golf and yachts, and the women gossiped about each other and fashion. Roberts the butler served them all with an obsequious smile, bowing so low that he almost scraped his nose on the carpet as they took what he had to offer and then ignored him as they carried on with their chatter.

While everything was as it should be upstairs, downstairs in the kitchens poor Larry thought he'd never worked so hard in his life. Sweat poured off him as he raced around the kitchen juggling pots and pans and bottles and bowls, mixing ingredients, pouring ingredients, putting things into the oven and taking them out. Even with his sleeves rolled up past his elbows and his collar buttons unfastened, he felt as if he was in a Turkish steam bath, minus the relaxation and enjoyment. It didn't help that every time Roberts came downstairs for more plates, the charmless butler would make some snarky wisecrack or rude remark that Larry had to bite his lip and ignore. _Why, you belligerent beanpole, if only Moe were here_, the electrocuted porcupine thought dismally to himself. _Moe would take this stuffed turkey and stuff it somewhere else!_

And there he was, obsessing over Moe again. The only time he wasn't thinking about Moe seemed to be when he was asleep, but Larry knew one thing for sure, cooking a lavish banquet for twelve fastidious fussbudgets was not something he relished doing all on his own. At least with the other Stooges he could have shared the blame for the mess and chaos he was creating!

Four hours later, Larry was on the verge of collapse. The guests had eaten almost everything in the cupboards, which Larry had cooked into various shapes and forms and smothered in different sauces to disguise the taste. They'd eaten dessert and consumed all of the wine and were probably now forging their way through the cheese board. Roberts had come downstairs and dumped several mountains of dirty dishes all over every available surface, and then stalked upstairs again with a hearty chuckle.

"I'm half the man I was," Larry moaned, wiping rivers of sweat from his face and neck, "and I wasn't that much of a man to begin with!"

As he began collecting the plates to be washed, he heard light footsteps coming across the kitchen floor towards him.

"There you are, Snookums," Mrs. Featherington said, soothingly.

"Yeah, here I are," Larry whined. "Where else would I be? Your guests have eaten everything in the house! I'm pooped!"

Mrs. Featherington let out a musical laugh and trailed her finger over Larry's shiny forehead. "You poor poopsie-woopsie," she smiled, moving closer. "You're all wet."

"What do you expect?" Larry grunted. "I just did the work of ten men!" He pursed his lips as Mrs. Featherington's hand began tracing its way down his cheek. "Well, one woman and one boy. But that ain't the point!"

"You sweet, wonderful man," Mrs. Featherington cooed. "I'm aware of how hard you've worked tonight, and I'm very grateful." Mrs. Featherington leaned forward and kissed Larry lightly on the cheek, letting her lips linger there for a fraction of a second longer than necessary. "_Very _grateful."

Larry stammered and blushed. "Oh? Really?"

"Yes, really." The smiling Society lady moved even closer, so close that she was almost in Larry's arms. "And to show my extreme gratitude to my darling Snookums, I have a very pleasant surprise for you tonight."

Larry gulped and swallowed. Never mind the heat generated by the ovens, the warmth seeping under his collar from the proximity of Mrs. Featherington was threatening to overwhelm him entirely.

"Y-you do?" he stuttered, aware that he sounded more like an idiot than ever.

"Yes." Mrs. Featherington pressed herself up against Larry and started toying with the frizzy, sweat soaked mop of tangled rats tails that Larry liked to call 'hair'. "Something I am quite sure you will like very much." Then, just as Larry thought he might pass out, she delivered the rest of her news without preamble. "There is a former friend of Philip's upstairs, a delightful chap by the name of Jasper Cartwright. He and Philip used to go everywhere together. But the most favourite thing that Philip enjoyed, were his ice fishing trips to Alaska. Oh, how he looked forward to those trips! And so, as a special thanks to you for working so hard, I've arranged with Jasper for you to accompany him on an ice fishing trip to Alaska this very weekend. How do you like that, Snookie-wookie? Your very first ice fishing trip! Won't that be fun?"

Larry came to with a jolt. _Ice fishing trip?_ He fought his way out of Mrs. Featherington's embrace and ripped the apron from around his neck, throwing it in disgust to the floor.

"Why, Snookums! You seem upset," the Society lady said, nervously.

"You betcha I'm upset! My first ice fishing trip might very well be my _last_ ice fishing trip!" Larry threw his arms up in despair. "I ain't your dead husband, lady," he said, as forcefully as he could while his heart spun around in his chest like a dog chasing its tail, "and I ain't your snookums. My name is Larry, okay? _Larry_! L...A...R..." he hesitated, rolling his eyes upwards and counting off on his fingers. "L...A...R...R...E? Anyway, it's _Larry_. Got that? Oh, and another thing, I quit! Yeah, you heard me, I QUIT!"

And with that, Larry was out of the back door. Out into the fresh air, running across the garden, his head thrown back and his arms outstretched yelling his name up into the star filled sky. Out across the driveway and down to the heavy wrought iron gates where he proceeded to climb right up and over them, not even waiting for Roberts to swing them open. And once Larry was over the gates and free from the Featherington Estate, he took off down the road and kept running. He ran and he ran and he ran until he thought he couldn't run any more, and then he kept running after that. He ran until the city lights appeared and he ran until the city swallowed him up like a tasty morsel. He ran until he reached the City Dump, and then he ran until he reached the small, lopsided shack sitting in the middle of the mountain range of trash. And only then did he stop.

Larry leaned against the rickety shack, gasping for air. Each burning breath tore his lungs to shreds but he needed the oxygen in his blood, he was close to collapsing from complete exhaustion. He was so pooped he thought he was going to be sick. He stood there and let the waves of nausea flow over him, waiting until they abated. When at last he began to feel better, he took one last deep breath, squared his shoulders, pushed open the door to the shack and went in.

Larry would have known where to find the bed even in the dark, but luckily there was a small oil lamp burning on a nearby table that was trying its hardest to light the room with its tiny flickering flame. The weak orange light barely illuminated the two largeish lumps in the bed, but there was no mistaking the rumbling grunts and snores that erupted from out of the tatty blankets that were so threadbare and thin that they barely retained any heat at all.

A wash of feelings came over Larry, some that he recognized and some that were new to him. The strongest feeling was one of homesickness- not for the Featherington mansion, but for this lowly shack, this hodge podge of bits and pieces thrown together in the middle of a pile of garbage. There was no denying that this place felt more like home than any other place he had ever been to.

As for the other feelings, well, he wasn't sure he was ready to confront any of them just yet. He was too tired, too confused, too defeated to think about anything other than the blessed oblivion of sleep.

Larry kicked off his shoes and went over to the bed. He picked the side of the bed that seemed to have more room on it and pulled back the ratty old blanket. He crawled in, onto the thin, lumpy mattress and budged up against the grunting, snoring, gurgling lump that was closest to him. The lump mumbled something in its sleep that sounded like, "_spread out_."

And that was the last thing Larry Fine heard before the sandman claimed him.

**…**

The morning sun peeped through the slats in the side of the shack and shone right into Moe's eyes, waking him up. Grumbling discontentedly, the bowl headed Stooge lifted his fist and clunked Curly on the head. "Hey, flathead, do something about that sun, will ya?"

"Soitenly," Curly mumbled. "Go away, sun!"

The sun promptly went behind a cloud.

"Well, whaddaya know, it worked," Moe chuckled.

"Nyuk nyuk nyuk," laughed Curly, but then the cloud passed and the sun came back again, jabbing Moe directly in his open eyes.

"I've been stabbed!" he shrieked, and then punched Curly hard in the stomach. "You did that on purpose!"

Curly bleated in pain, and then another voice piped up, wholly unexpected.

"Hey! Leave him alone!"

Moe froze just as he was about to deliver another sock to Curly's stomach. "Hey, did you throw your voice?"

Curly shook his head. "I ain't no venticular twist!"

"Then who did?" Moe turned over in the bed and there was Larry, grinning at him like a loon.

"Howdy!"

Moe blinked and his mouth fell open. "Porcupine!" he yelled. "Hey, Curly! It's Porcupine! He's back!"

Curly sat up in the bed. "It's a miracle! Ask and ye shall recede!"

Moe slapped him across the face. "You recede," he grunted, then turned back to Larry. "Porcupine! What gives?"

Larry smiled ruefully. "Well, ya see, I had this awful dream... a nightmare, in fact."

"Oh, I understand," Moe grinned. "Those ol' nightmares are screwy things, right kid?"

"Yeah," Larry agreed. "They make you believe all kinds of things are true."

Moe wrapped his arms around Larry and squeezed hard.

"Hey, watch out," Larry mumbled, his face crushed against Moe's chest. "You really wanna squeeze the cider outa my Adam's apple?"

"It's the least you deserve!" Moe shouted, thumping Larry's back. "You had me so worried, you numbskull! Why, I oughta knock some sense into your brains, if you had brains!"

"Well, don't worry, I got brains and I know how to use 'em," Larry said. "And I used 'em last night to get myself the heck outa there!"

Moe thumped him once more on the back for good measure. "I'm proud of you, kid. You did the right thing."

"Don't get excited, Moe," Larry responded. "I may be back but that doesn't mean you can start pushing me around again."

Moe slapped on his widest smile. "You hear that?" he said to Curly, then laughed. "He doesn't want to be pushed around any more. Looks like the kid came back with some front!"

"And don't you forget it," said Larry, grandly, puffing out his chest like a peacock.

"Oh, I won't forget it," smiled Moe.

It was only then that Larry realised that he had let his guard down.

Already.

Not five minutes after returning home.

He braced himself, and sure enough, Moe slapped him.

"I won't forget that you're an imbecile!" the chief Stooge hollered. "I won't forget to murder you! I won't forget to tear you limb from limb and _then_ murder you!"

Larry fell out of the bed and ran around the room with Moe hot on his heels, dishing out slaps all the way.

"Stand still while I'm tryin' to murder you!" Moe ranted, then slapped a wooden post by mistake after Larry ducked out of his way.

"You missed! Nyaaa!" Larry stuck out his tongue, then squealed in pain as Moe reached out and grabbed it, pulling until it stretched out like a piece of rubber from his mouth. "Owowowowow!"

Moe let go and Larry's tongue snapped back into his mouth with a loud twaanng.

"And let that be a lesson to you!" Moe barked. "Now get over there and get busy. It's your turn to make breakfast and we're hungry!"

Larry shuffled across the shack to the one ring burner that the Stooges cooked all of their meals on. Next to the tiny stove was nothing but a packet of oatmeal and a single egg that probably wasn't going to smell very fresh once cracked. But it was what he was used to, and for some reason those humble items brought a tear to his eye- a tear that he was keen for Moe not to see.

Unfortunately, Moe was heading across the room right towards him, and Larry wasn't quick enough in wiping the little bead of water from his cheek. He drew in his breath and braced himself for a slap.

Instead, Moe handed him a handkerchief. "Here," he said, gruffly.

Larry took the handkerchief gratefully and wiped his eye with it. The slap he was waiting for never came, not even when he folded the handkerchief and offered it back to Moe.

"Keep it," said Moe. "Add another one to your collection, _Snookums_." And then the chief Stooge turned away, leaving Larry to tuck the handkerchief gently into his back pocket and get busy fixing their oatmeal.

THE END


End file.
